Surviving a Boy's Boarding School
by Artemis Lightmetal
Summary: For the sake of her frail brother, Tenten has to pose as a boy in an all boy's boarding school. She makes fast friends on her first day, including Neji Hyuuga... kind of. Eventual Nejiten. Hiatus
1. Preparation and First Day

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Summary: Tenten decides to pose as a boy in a all-male boarding school for the sake of her frail brother, but problems start on her first day, but still, at least she befriends some people, like Neji Hyuuga. Slight similarities to Mulan and Hana Kimi. Eventual Nejiten.

Disclaimer: I do not own Hana Kimi, Mulan nor Naruto. I do own Ryuhi, Mizuki, Tochi, Kazemi, Tsuki and Taiyou, though.

Hm... I don't know why I wrote this. I already have two Naruto stories going through my head (and the first chapter of each are typed down), but I suddenly wanted to make a fanfic centered on Tenten... and Tenten's last name is Miyamura in this fic since it hasn't been publically released yet. It's rated T because, well, just to be safe. Oh, and overly awkward scenes may take place. I nearly choked, disgusted at my own writing, though that may be my own naivety. Kekkei Genkais are kept, as are other special abilities.

Chapter: Preparation and First Day

"WHAT?!"

A brown-haired girl stared at her auburn-haired brother in utter disbelief after he set down a stack of ten sheets of paper onto a rather large envelope. He looked at her sheepishly, waiting for the worse to happen. Her eyes stared at him in disbelief for a full five minutes before she collapsed onto her armchair.

Currently, the two siblings, Tenten and Ryuhi, were situated in the living room of a medium-sized house. Ryuhi was wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of loose red pants. His dark brown eyes surveyed Tenten nervously as she stayed in her slumped position for a few more minutes. Silence reigned.

Finally, Tenten lifted her head up. "What's going to happen, then? I mean, father wants at least one child to go to Konoha Gakuen, but it says that taking a sport is mandatory, and your condition doesn't make it easy for you to do sports or overexert yourself."

Ryuhi gulped. "I really don't know," he answered, biting his bottom lip. "I'm completely stumped this time." Both siblings sat in silence for a while as Tenten went over all of the possible ways for them to cancel the enrollment or dissuade their parents. Nothing came to her mind. She shut her eyes tightly. What are all of the possible solutions? Idea after idea came to her head, but each was stranger and less realistic than the one that preceded it.

Meanwhile, Ryuhi had given up trying to find an idea and instead looked nervously at his sister. She was deep in thought, and that was what made him nervous. Yes, she was a great thinker at many times, but she could go overboard when she does it too much. And apparently, this was one of the times. If there was only a way that would work without them getting in trouble or without doing anything drastic...

"I got it!" yelled Tenten, leaping up from the chair. Ryuhi looked up at her, startled as he took a small sip from his cup of water. "It's simple, Ryuhi. Quite simple, actually."

"...well, what is it?"

"I'm going in your place," she announced with a straight face, looking straight at Ryuhi. Ryuhi nearly sprayed the contents of his cup onto the floor and set his cup down, choking. Tenten, worried, walked over to him and gently thumped him on the back. Well, gently in her opinion, but it was unnecessarily hard in his opinion. Nonetheless, he did stop choking.

"Are you crazy?" he asked, looking at her warily. "Our parents would never agree to that! I mean, I know that a girl is capable of holding the family business, but still..."

"Geez, Ryuhi, don't worry so much," sighed Tenten, rolling her eyes. "You'll grow bald before you're supposed to. But back on the point, I'm completely capable of taking your place, you know. I'm quite athletic, and I'd fit in easier than you would. Besides, we shouldn't risk your health just to put you in some high-class school that focuses on sports just as much as academics."

"But Tenten! It's a _boy's_ boarding school!"

"So?"

"What do you mean, _so_? You'll be found out by the end of the semester, and besides, father would never agree to this. He'd say it's wrong for a girl to live with boys 24/7, and how are you supposed to disguise yourself as a boy?"

"Simple," said Tenten, smiling softly. "I cut my hair and learn how to act like a boy. Oh come on," she said, suddenly with a wide grin, "you know how tomboyish I can get!"

"I know, but... well, father would never agree to this!"

"...what drug did you put in his drink?" asked Ryuhi ruefully, letting his head thud onto his desk after dinner. Currently, the two siblings were in his room, right after they had finished their dinners, in which Tenten explained the whole problem to their father.

"None. He just wants someone who goes to Konoha, you know," she said smugly, smiling. However, she too was quivering inside. How the heck was she supposed to hold a disguise for that long? It was ridiculous; even though she acted like a boy, she still didn't look like one. Sure, she wore loose clothing that rarely showed her curves, and she actually prided in the fact that her chest area wasn't particularly large. Despite that, she still looked female.

Ryuhi sighed, irritated, and stood up. "But how are we supposed to get all of this sorted out?" he half-yelled in frustration. "We need to give you a new name. "Tenten" just sounds too feminine, and you can't use my name; I'm still enrolling in the school I was in before summer break." (School years begin and end during the springtime, not the summer, I think, so they aren't even close to the end of the school year.) "How about... Hayaite?"

"Ryuhi, I think one of the teachers there is named Hayate," said Tenten, unimpressed.

"How do you know?"

"I looked at the staff list. But anyway, how do you spell Hayaite in kanji?"

"You use 'Hayai' (swift) and 'te' (hand)," answered Ryuhi, rolling his eyes. "Besides, Hayaite isn't a bad name, and it describes you. You're the fastest person of the family, and you even beat father when you two sparred. Besides, it has the syllable 'te' at the end."

"...okay, that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I guess it _could_ work as long as I don't get mixed up with Hayate-sensei," she mumbled. "Wait, how do we tell the school?"

"Well, writing to them that Miyamura Hayaite is going in the place of Miyamura Ryuhi helps," said Ryuhi, rolling his eyes. Tenten nodded and immediately grabbed Ryuhi's envelope and papers to give to their father downstairs so he could officially make the change. Ryuhi stared at the door in which his sister went out of, and grinned.

"This is going to be an interesting year for her, isn't it?" Coughing slightly, he sat down and went on his computer, getting it out of "stand by" mode and opened the Instant Messaging.

-Fire-Tamer- has signed on.

_-Fire-Tamer-_ Oi, are you still there?

-_Star-Lord-_ Yeah. So, what's so important that you bolted from your computer earlier?

_-Fire-Tamer-_ Well, you see, I'm not going to Konoha anymore.

-_Star-Lord-_ What?! But... oh, right. Did I mention that there was a hard-core sports program?

-_Fire-Tamer-_ No.

-_Star-Lord-_ Oh. Sorry about that. ;;

-Solitary-Crescent- has signed on.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Oh, hi, Ryuhi. Hi, numskull.

_-Star-Lord-_ Hey... stop calling me that!

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ When you stop being so annoying.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ You guys, stop bantering. Geez, you two have known each other for more than a decade and you're still like this.

_-Solitary-Crescent-_ Yeah, yeah. Anyways, what's going on?

-_Star-Lord-_ Ryuhi isn't going to go to Konoha because of the hardcore training and sports that the school has.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Hm... is that so? Well then, what's going to happen instead? Your dad wanted his heir to go to that school right?

_-Fire-Tamer-_ Eheheheh... well, the thing is, Tenten is filling in for me.

_-Star-Lord-_ ...O.O; WHAT THE HECK?!

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ u.u;; sigh... will you quit yelling in writing? But still, this is certainly a surprise, Ryuhi. What if she gets caught?

-_Fire-Tamer-_ That's where the problem is. I won't have any way of watching over her. So I won't know if some guy finds out her secret and ends up trying to hit on her.

-_Star-Lord-_ Oh, don't worry about that, Ryuhi. We'll protect her.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ You mean we'll protect her if we have the same dorm building and/or classroom. If we don't, then I have no idea how we're supposed to find her.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Thanks, guys.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Our pleasure. You can guarantee that any guy who starts flirting with Tenten, whether he's gay, bi or straight, will feel my fist against his jaw.

-_Star-Lord-_ ...okay, what do you mean, "gay, bi or straight"?

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ What I meant was whether he knew Tenten was a girl (thus making him either bi or straight) or didn't know she was a girl (making him gay or bi). I have nothing against any of those three "groups", but they will be hurt if they lay one malevolent hand on Tenten. What's her male name, by the way?

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Hayaite. And you don't have to be _that_ protective.

-_Star-Lord-_ Definitely. We do not want to see you snap again. I still have the bruises from last time, and that was two months ago.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Yeah, yeah. Anyway, make sure to tell Water Mistress, Wind Rider and Silent Earth too. We'll probably be the protectors, but you have to have a few more people helping you out. Of course, the less people that know, the better, but those three should be fine. Unless Rider decides to turn on us and convinces the newspaper editor to create a gossip column on Tenten.

_-Star-Lord-_ Aren't we pessimistic today?

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ glares

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Well, anyway, Tenten's in the room now, so I'll have to go. Bye.

-Fire-Tamer- has signed off.

"It's official," sighed Tenten as she slipped a piece of paper into a significantly smaller envelope. "I'm going to go to Konoha Gakuen as Miyamura Hayaite."

"How come father's so easily persuaded?" asked Ryuhi, looking out the window just as he closed the instant message box. "I thought he'd throw a fit at least, or rant about how females shouldn't carry on family businesses."

"Actually, I don't think he ever gave much opinion on the male heir thing," said Tenten, now that she thought about it thoroughly. "It's possible that the only reason that you were supposed to inherit the business was because you were born a minute before me."

"Well, there's no turning back now," said Ryuhi, and Tenten nodded in agreement. After sealing the envelope shut, she padded down the stairs again to give the envelope back to father. Ryuhi blinked. "Wait, why did she come up here at all? Oh well." Within a few minutes, Tenten was in his room again.

"Okay... so what should we do now?" she asked, looking at her older twin. Ryuhi looked thoughtful for a moment before grinning.

"We'll have to work on making you more similar to a boy," he said, his grin widening as he grabbed for the phone.

"No."

"But-"

"Not on my life."

"But Ten-"

"I said, NO!"

"JUST SHUT IT, YOU TWO! TENTEN, YOU ARE WEARING THAT SHIRT OR ELSE I'LL PUNCH YOU TO SATURN, AND KAZEMI, QUIT FINDING THE 'CUTEST' THINGS THAT YOU COULD FIND FOR TENTEN!"

"But Mizuki, Tenten should show even a little of her femininity even if she's posing as a boy!"

"YOU IDIOT! KAZEMI, CAN'T YOU SEE THAT WE'RE TRYING TO MAKE TENTEN LOOK MORE MASCULINE AND YOUR CHOICE OF CLOTHING JUST MAKES HER LOOK MORE LIKE A GIRL?! SHE'LL BE DISCOVERED IN NO TIME, DARN IT!"

"Girls are so loud. Don't you think so, Tochi?"

"...I guess..."

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" yelled all three girls as they turned towards the only two boys in the group. One of the girls (apart from Tenten) had dark brown hair tied in a high ponytail that reached her shoulder, while the other had light brown hair, tied in pigtails, that ended somewhere around her elbows.

"...nothing," sighed the black-haired boy who sat next to Ryuhi. "But still, I do agree with Mizuki-san and Tenten-san, Kazemi-san. You shouldn't make Tenten-san wear feminine clothes because she'll be posing as a boy twenty four hours a day, seven days a week."

"Whaaaat? Tochi-kun is on their side too?" wailed the girl with pigtails, causing the others to wince. "But Tenten-chan doesn't look good anymore!" The girl with the ponytail, Mizuki (yes, different from the teacher early in the series and the protagonist in Hana Kimi), shook her head, rubbing her forehead with her right hand in irritation.

"Oh geez... Tenten, just wear some of Ryuhi's clothes, will you?" sighed the tomboy (she's more tomboyish than Tenten, even), went over to Ryuhi's closet and threw some clothes at her.

"Mizuki, don't do that to my clothes," said Ryuhi, sweat dropping.

"Do you have any objections on Tenten using your clothes?"

"No, but—"

"Alright, problem solved," she said, ignored the rest of his spluttering and threw some more random clothes at Tenten. Some even hit her face. "Oh. Oops... sorry, Tenten."

"It's no problem," muttered Tenten, ripping the sweatshirt off of her head before looking around. "Say, where's Kazemi _now_? I hope she wasn't hurt by that argument you had with her."

As if answering her question, the door slammed open, startling Tochi, Ryuhi, Tenten and Mizuki. Tochi's hair fell over his right eye again (his hair is similar to Tomoyo's mother's hairstyle in Cardcaptor Sakura) and he didn't even bother to readjust it. Mizuki dropped the piece of clothing she was about to fling at Tenten and Tenten and Ryuhi just gaped at the door. Kazemi was standing there holding a spraying bottle of water (the ones they spray windows with when they clean them, except it has water in it), a pair of scissors, a large piece of cloth and a comb.

"All right, Tenten, we'll work on your hair after this," she said brightly, her eyes shining. Everybody didn't turn to Tenten, but to Tochi instead. The only reason his hair covers his right eye from time to time was because of that one time that Kazemi tried to cut somebody's hair. Tochi, unfortunately, was forced to get his hair cut.

"Good luck, Tenten," he muttered before joining Mizuki in giving Tenten clothes from Ryuhi's closet. Tenten mumbled something under her breath, her face pale, before trying on some of Ryuhi's clothes, hoping that the clothes session will not end. Otherwise, she'd have to face the horror of getting her hair cut by Kazemi, the most absentminded teen who had no talent when it came to using sharp objects.

It took a moment for Tenten to realize that Mizuki had stopped throwing clothes. She turned to find that the three (minus Kazemi) had a short, whispered discussion behind her back. Mizuki gulped and looked at Tenten slightly nervously. "Uh, Tenten, before we work on clothes, I think we'll have to find a way to hide your curves..." There was an awkward silence in the room as Tenten slowly turned pink. It was especially embarrassing because two boys were in the room as well, even if one of them was her older twin brother.

"I'll go get bandages," muttered Tochi, suddenly standing up and in a few strides, was at the door. Everybody blinked and Ryuhi immediately jumped up and ran after his friend, saying something along the lines of Tochi not knowing where the bandages were. Silence reined in the room, and Kazemi's embarrassed expression suddenly turned into an evil one.

"So, Tenten," she said in a sly tone, "what is the tightest sports bra that you have?" It didn't take long for both Mizuki and Tenten to realize that the abashed look on Kazemi's face a few moments ago was just an act to get the boys out and have them have a talk about things centered around girls.

Needless to say, Tenten was so terrified by Kazemi's expression that she would have begged her to cut her hair instead if she didn't have any dignity.

"We're done!" announced Kazemi, five days later, as the group of four presented "Miyamura Hayaite" to the head of the Miyamura family's head, or Tenten and Ryuhi's father. Actually, it was Kazemi who presented her. Mizuki stood back with bags under her eyes, looking like she hasn't slept for three years. Ryuhi was leaning against the wall, eyes barely open, as he tried his best not to fall asleep. Tochi was, well, fully awake, but was as silent as usual.

"Really? Thanks to you al—," began Ryuhi's father, but he stopped his sentence when he caught a glimpse of Tenten.

Or what was left of the Tenten he knew.

The new Tenten, now named Hayaite, was wearing a baggy brown sweatshirt with a gray colored hood and a picture of a katana on the back. She had on a pair of male's jeans and white socks, in contrast to the red ones that Tenten usually wears. Her hair was now cut short and the back was just long enough to reach her shoulders, but only that tiny part on the neck did that. Her face had a dark scowl on it and was tinted pink, from embarrassment, and he thought he saw a tiny wound on her forehead.

"..."

"Tenten, say something!"

"..."

"Oi! Tenten!"

"Kazemi, if she doesn't want to say anything, then we can't force her to."

"Kazemi has a point though, Mizuki. We should test her new voice."

"Wow. That's the most words I've ever heard you speak in a single sentence, Tochi."

"Guys, be quiet," said a deep voice, and Ryuhi's father looked up, alarmed, for the source of the voice. Kazemi and Mizuki were smirking, Ryuhi was giving a tired half-smile, and Tochi, nodded, as if reading his mind.

"Ten... ten? Was that you who was talking?" asked her father, looking like he was about to have a heart attack. The girl, who now looked fully like a boy, smiled sheepishly and nodded. It was at that moment when her father fainted.

"Erk... father!" Tenten and Ryuhi quickly ran to their dad's side, and Tenten was using a piece of paper to fan him until he woke up. "Wake up! Hey, Tenten, he's not dead, is he?"

"...no, he has a pulse," said Tenten, sighing in relief as he felt her father's neck with her free hand. "Who would think he would react that dramatically when I did that voice...?"

"Well, that just means that you're convincing enough!" said Kazemi cheerily, clapping her hands in delight. Mizuki rolled her eyes and knelt beside Ryuhi, trying to help revive the man.

"Is this a good idea?" asked Tenten nervously, tugging a microscopic long piece of hair that Kazemi had missed. "I'm having doubts about this now. I mean, I know I'm doing this for the family, but isn't this going too far?"

"Tenten," said Ryuhi in an exasperated voice, "this was _your_ idea. The idea of you cross dressing, at least." Ryuhi gave a small, genuine cough and took a drink from his bottle of water, which sat between them in the car.

It was finally the destined day when Tenten was to go be a full-time male, or at least seemingly like a male, at the Konoha Boy's Boarding School (Konoha Gakuen, or Konoha High school is what everybody calls it). Currently, she was sitting in the car with Ryuhi next to her, as said school came into view in the distance. She gulped and went through everything she's brought in her head. She had brought things that would help her seem like a guy to her roommate and dearly hoped that he didn't find out about her "condition" too soon. Or, she could just grab one of the kunais that she had brought with her and hit him in the head with the blunt end. Then, when he woke up and asked if she was a girl, she could tell him he was simply dreaming.

Yes, Tenten brought weapons. One of the sports, after all, is free-style martial arts that a person nicknamed it "ninja fighting", obviously by a person who loved the topic of ninjas. She loved using weapons and knew quite a few things about ninjutsu, genjutsu, doujutsu and taijutsu. But whatever people called it, it was still one of the most famous sports among the schools in their area.

It took too little time to get to the school, and she was almost a nervous wreck. If it was just a new school, fine. She could make friends in no time, and probably some enemies as well. However, the idea that she was going to be surrounded by boys twenty four hours a day seemed to finally sink into her head and she thought grimly that she MUST not let her secret slip. She also knew that most girls would kill to take her place right now, but she wanted to be anywhere but there right now.

She was currently wearing the school's summer uniform, which included a white t-shirt and a red tie. Her pants were mahogany with a white stripe running down both sides, and she wore some tennis shoes, in case she had to run or something. Even though her style of clothing changed drastically, she still looked like a boy.

Finally, it was time to say goodbyes. Ryuhi hugged Tenten one last time as she went through the school gates, tugging two two-wheeled luggage bags with her, a duffel bag resting on each luggage bag. Nobody knew how she was able to carry that many things, but she didn't really care. She was strong enough.

Slowly, she went towards the school door and hoisted the bags towards the building.

"Hey, I think that's the new student."

"Seriously? Let me look!"

"Stop pushing me away from the window. Hm, he seems to look nervous..."

"Anybody would be nervous on their first day!"

"Will you quit joking around?"

"All right, all right. But anyway, I'm surprised he hasn't broken down yet. I mean, those bags look really heavy, and he doesn't really seem that strong."

"Looks can be deceiving, you know."

(Give your best guess on who those two are. )

"Miyamura Hayaite, is it?" asked the blonde-haired woman at the desk, looking over the files. "Ah, yes, yes, you're the one who's replacing Miyamura Ryuhi in this school due to his frail health. You have a history of being a good weapon-handler, a better-than-average taijutsu user, and decent in most of the other areas. A constant honor roll student." The woman, who was apparently the principal (why the principal was a woman when the whole student body was male, she had no idea why), nodded as she looked over her paper. Then, she looked up and grinned. "Konoha will be glad to have you."

"Thank you, um, Tsunade-sama," said Tenten, trying to keep her voice deep. "But where should I put my bags?" Tsunade looked over Tenten's shoulder and had a brief look of horror at the four, and seemingly heavy, bags that were pulled by Tenten. The principal hastily gestured for the student to put them against the wall, thinking she'll deal with it later.

"All right, Miyamura-kun," said Tsunade, handing Tenten a few pieces of paper, "this is your schedule for your classes today. Shizune, my assistant, will meet you in your last period to give you your room assignment after we find an empty room for you, or one with only one inhabitant. But first of all... which dorm number do you want?"

Tenten raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

Tsunade sighed. "The students are split into four dorm buildings, each with a great variety of students with their own personalities and belonging to different sports teams. Usually, we give each person a random dorm number when they enter in their freshman year, but because you're arriving late, we're giving you the choice. All of the are equally good, though there's some kind of competitive air between all four dorms." She thrust a map towards Tenten's direction, and the girl studied the map.

The school building was in the middle of the campus, with the four dorm buildings located around the corners. The gate, which was on the bottom of the map, faced southward, making the buildings north of the gate. Dorm one was in the northwestern corner, dorm two was in the northeastern corner, dorm three was in the southeastern corner, and dorm four was in the southwestern corner. Tenten pondered, and looked up. "I'll take dorm three, since all of the dorms are the same."

"All right," muttered Tsunade, making a note. "All right, you have ten minutes until class starts. I suggest you hurry up and get there. The teachers should give you the textbooks today."

Tenten nodded silently and exited the door, wondering how in the world she was supposed to know where her first class was.

'_I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late..._' chanted Tenten frantically in her head as she ran at top speed around the school. She could not find her first class, no matter how long she looked. She was in class... A of her dorm number. That means 3-A. So, where is the darn class when she needed to find it?

"Gr... Ah!" she exclaimed when she stopped in front of a door with the sign "3-A" above it. Double checking her schedule before entering the class, she stepped inside the room just as the bell rang.

There was a scramble for seats when she entered, but when most of the students saw that she wasn't the teacher, they groaned and went about their business, i.e. talking. Tenten raised an eyebrow. They are going to get in major trouble with the teacher...

Sighing, she picked an empty seat near the back and put down her bag, surveying the people. Most of them were rowdy boys, but she saw a few quiet people here and there. It was good to know that the class wasn't completely insane. She looked around her seats, having nothing else to do. To her left was a brown-haired boy who was chatting with a boy next to him, who seemed a little irritated. He had strange navy-blue hair that was... long. It probably was long enough to reach his knees. However, it was tied in a ponytail starting at somewhere around the top of her neck that nearly reached the floor. That was... strange.

Averting her eyes away from the curious navy-haired boy, she instead looked in front of her. A black-haired boy wearing a large green overcoat was sitting there quietly. Tenten could have sworn that she saw a bug crawling on his neck, but if she did, it was gone now. To her right was a bookcase that had some books with interesting names, like a few copies of "Icha Icha Paradise," which Tenten has never read nor heard of. Shrugging, she looked behind her to find a pale-faced boy with long black hair tied in a very loose ponytail.

'_What is up with boys and long hair these days?'_ she thought, thinking it was a strange thing. She was about to turn back to her desk when she noticed that the boy was staring at her the whole time. And she noticed that he had no pupils at all. For some reason, Tenten couldn't break the eye contact, and was sure that she looked, at the least, a little like a nervous wreck.

"Uh... hi?" she asked nervously, finally breaking the silence.

"Hn," the boy grunted, and focused his gaze elsewhere. Utterly confused, she decided to forget that anything had happened and turned back to her desk. Having nothing else to do, she aimlessly gazed at the books beside her.

Suddenly, the door opened and the room fell silent except for the few people who were bustling back to their seats. To Tenten's surprise, in came a man in his twenty's, but had silver hair. Most of his face was covered; his nose and mouth was hidden by a mask and his left eye by a headband. Before he could say a word, though, a blonde boy on the other side of the room stood up abruptly and yelled, "YOU'RE LATE!"

"Sorry," said the man pleasantly, "but I was stuck on the path of life..."

"LIAR!"

Tenten sweat dropped, but nobody else seemed fazed, which only made her sweat drop larger. This was an... interesting school.

"Anyway," said the teacher, straightening himself. "I think I would like to introduce our new student, Miyamura Hayaite. He's right... there," finished the teacher, gesturing towards Tenten's direction. She felt her face tint when the whole class looked at her.

Breathing in, she stood up and looked at the class with a blank expression. "It is a pleasure to meet everybody. As said, I am Miyamura Hayaite, and I hope to get to know you all." There was a small silence in the room before a loud voice yelled something.

"Hey! You look like a girl!" yelled a brown-haired boy with red marks on his face. Tenten's heart nearly stopped. Great, not an hour had passed and she was already going to be sent home. Her act was up...

"Stop making fun of him," said a voice near her. Everybody turned to the source instead. It was the long navy-haired boy, and now that she saw them, she noticed that his eyes were a deep mahogany color. He was casting a small glare at the boy who said that Tenten looked like a girl. "So what if he looks like a guy? Don't judge people by their looks, Inuzuka Kiba, and besides, not all girls are weak, just as there are weak males as well." Tenten saw that the boy who sat between them was smirking, as if fully anticipating this to happen.

"Hey! Stop defending him, Kurayami! You're just saying that because you look like a girl too!" retorted the boy named Kiba, crossing his arms.

"No, but I am because I grew up with a feminist mother and father," answered Kurayami. Tenten raised an eyebrow. That's a strange last name. (Kurayami means darkness.) "And give the guy a chance, will you? Who knows, he could be stronger than you." There was a slight glimmer in the expressionless mahogany eyes, but it was gone in a second.

"Inuzuka, Kurayami, please stop your arguing," said the teacher, sighing. "Anyway, Miyamura, I am Hatake Kakashi, but you can just call me Kakashi-sensei. One of my greatest hopes for you is that you get along with the others well and make new friends. Are you ready for the lesson?" Tenten nodded. "All right, everybody, turn to page 212..."

"I'm... hungry..." groaned Tenten, lying her head on the desk. '_And I don't know how long I can keep this masquerade up. I probably look boyish if compared to other girls, but I must look feminine compared to normal boys...'_

"Are you going to sit there or are you going to get lunch?" asked a voice above her, and she looked up to see the boy who sat next to her standing there, smirking. "There's no need to get depressed on your first day here, you know. I mean, Tsuki," he continued, pointing at the navy-haired boy behind him, "defended you from Kiba. Don't worry about that guy for now."

"Thanks, uh..."

"Hikari Taiyou. You can just call me Taiyou. I don't like being called 'Hikari'."

"All right. Thanks, Taiyou. And thanks, Kurayami, for earlier."

"No problem," shrugged Kurayami, "and don't call me Kurayami. Tsuki is fine."

"Or you can call him Tsubame-chan," whispered Taiyou to Tenten. She looked up at him, confused. Tsuki's mouth twitched. (Tsubame means swallow.)

"Taiyou... how many times do I have to tell you not call me 'Tsubame-chan'...?" he growled, shaking. Now that she was told about him being "tsubame", she realized that his hair was indeed split into two parts, resembling the tail of a swallow.

"Cut it out," said another voice behind her, and Tenten turned to see the pupiless boy, arms crossed, and glaring at the two teens. "You guys bicker every single day and it surprises me how you two never get tired of it."

"Believe me, I get tired of it all the time," said Tsuki, shaking his head in an irritated fashion. "But Taiyou here can't stop being annoying, and _somebody_ has to look after him, or he'll be beat up by a thug or something."

"Are they always like this?" she asked the long-haired boy curiously as the two continued their argument.

"I just said that they didn't go a single day without bickering."

"Oh..."

"Hn."

'_He sure grunts a lot,'_ she thought, a little annoyed at his personality. She went back to looking at the two bicker. Actually, it was more like Taiyou insulting Tsuki and Tsuki throwing the insult right back at him with a straight face. "I can't remember any other two people more different than you two," said Tenten out loud.

The two stopped their quarrel, stared at Tenten, and Taiyou grinned. "Wait until you meet Lee, and watch how his personality clashes with Neji's," he said, his grin turning into a smirk. Tenten raised her eyebrows questioningly and Tsuki simply rolled his eyes. The pupiless boy, Neji, suddenly went stiff, to her surprise.

"Well, we should be getting to the lunchroom anyway unless we want the last servings of the meal," said Tsuki, and all four looked around the room; not another soul was in sight.

"Darn it," muttered Tenten as she rushed out the door with Taiyou, Tsuki and Neji in front of her.

Temisu: And I'll stop it here. How did you guys like it? It's my first published fanfiction. To me, the first chapters are always the hardest because I get the idea of a good story, but I need the introduction first. So, please tell me what you thought of it. Constructive criticism is welcomed with open arms. I hope I won't have to do another awkward scene, if that one scene was considered awkward at all.

It will take a while to post the next chapter, since I haven't even started yet and I am drowning in homework. I estimate that I'll update in a month due to homework and procrastination. Please alert me of any ooc-ness. I have only read up to the twelfth book and am not that far into the anime. I've read all of the Hana Kimi books, however, and have seen the whole first season of the Taiwanese drama version and am working on the Japanese drama version.


	2. Friends or Maybe Not

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Mulan nor do I own Hana Kimi. I also don't own I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Okay. It took me less than a week to update instead of a month.

Thank you, everyone, for all of the reviews, alerts and favorites. I really appreciated them. I was so nervous while putting in the first chapter... and I was making last-minute changes. I'm limited to an hour a day on the internet. And for those of you who were overwhelmed by the amount of original characters on the previous chapter, don't worry. They won't appear often. Only Tsuki and Taiyou are going to be in almost every chapter, since they go to the school. Ryuhi will appear from time to time.

There is a possibility that this fanfic will have Sasusaku and Naruhina as minor side pairings. Shikatema is another small possibility, though if in it, it would be extremely minor. I need your opinions on whether I should include side pairings or focus solely on Neji and Tenten, since I haven't fully developed the plot details yet. There will be a few things similar to Hana Kimi, though... and others vaguely like Mulan.

Chapter 2: Friends... or Maybe Not

Tenten followed the three boys down towards the cafeteria, hoping that they wouldn't get them lost, even though she knew that the three attended the school since the beginning. Nonetheless, all four of them arrived at the cafeteria in two minutes, and Tenten heard the voices of the students grow louder and louder.

When Tsuki opened the door, Tenten was shocked to find that the whole cafeteria was almost filled. She spotted the blonde boy who shouted at Kakashi-sensei sitting in one of the tables to the side with Inuzuka, the boy who wore a green overcoat over his uniform and some others. Most of them were laughing at something, except the green coat boy and another who just smirked.

"Hayaite!" yelled Taiyou, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Are you going to stand there all day with that surprised expression or are you going to come with us to get some food?" Tenten quickly noted that the three were already a few feet away from her, and she caught up with them in a short amount of time. "Geez, do you get lost in your own world all the time?" teased the boy.

"Taiyou, drop it," sighed Tsuki, shaking his head. "Come on, let's get something to eat before even the small portions of the meal get taken." With that, the group hastened to the line, and somehow managed to grab decent-sized bowls of ramen. Tenten was about to ask where they were supposed to sit before realizing that they had accidentally left her behind.

"They sure walk fast," she murmured before turning her head this way and that, trying to locate the three teens. Unfortunately, she was one of the shorter people here and couldn't see over the heads of the other students who were standing for one reason or another. Gulping, she walked in a random direction to find herself almost crashing into a wall. Cursing under her breath, she turned to her right and started walking, glancing to and fro from time to time, seeing if she could locate a mass of navy hair. After all, she doubted anybody had blue hair in this school apart from Tsuki.

After a few minutes, though, she still couldn't find them even after doing a full circuit around the cafeteria, and was getting aware of the fact that her ramen was getting cold. She sighed, and took one last look before she was about to exit the area, and unconsciously backed up and into someone.

"Sorry," she mumbled before looking up, noticing that it was, to her delight, Neji. "Ah! I was looking all over for you guys..."

"Hn," was all Neji said and he turned, walking back from the way he came from. Tenten subconsciously rolled her eyes but followed him, not wanting to be stranded once again. She was right about him being a fast walker; she could just barely keep up. After walking for a while, and weaving through the teenagers, the two finally arrived in a table that was in the corner. It was already occupied by three people. Tsuki and Taiyou were included in that three, and the third was a strange-looking boy with a bowl-cut hair, large round eyes and enormous eyebrows.

"What has taken you so long, my eternal rival?" asked the bowl-haired boy, clenching his fist comically and pointing at Neji with the other hand, jumping onto the table. "You are usually superb in tracking people down!" Neji ignored the boy and sat down, and Tenten hastily sat down as well, between him and the empty chair that the boy had sat in moments before.

"Lee, don't stand on the table; you'll make it even dirtier," stated Tsuki in a monotone, taking a teapot and pouring some tea into everybody's cup. The boy, Lee, flushed a little and jumped back down into his seat, but accidentally nudged Tenten, hard. Her arm, which was suspended in mid-air, was about to reach for the ramen, but was forced to the side instead. That tipped over her teacup (it was about fifteen centimeters tall), spilling it onto Neji's side and the tea easily flowed onto his lap.

"Ah! S-sorry, Hyuuga!" she exclaimed as Neji jumped up reflexively, though with the same emotionless face. She quickly got to work on cleaning the table while Taiyou slapped his forehead and Tsuki sweat dropped, sighing.

Lee, however, was the one who was in tears. "I'm sorry, Neji! It is my fault that you had tea spilled onto you! It is not this youthful _flower_'s fault! In punishment, I will do one hundred laps around Konoha—"

Tenten's head shot up. "Flower?"

"Lee, Hayaite is a guy," said Taiyou, also sweat dropping. "Remember that this is an all boy's school."

Tenten's face paled. "You thought I was a gir— Erk... Hyuuga, you'll need an ice pack," she said, gulping as she noticed that Neji's lap was steaming from the hot tea that was accidentally knocked onto him. He scowled slightly at her, making her wince. His eyes were so piercing it was scary... but now was not the time.

"Ah, it is my fault!" yelled Lee in anguish, making the whole table flinch, including Neji. "My eternal rival, I will help you to the Health Center! But I will need the help of this youthful boy to carry you!"

'_At least he doesn't think I'm a girl anymore_,' she thought before noticing that Neji's already pale face grew paler. Sighing, she slung Neji's right arm around her shoulders (he looked at her as if she was crazy) and Lee did the same with Neji's left arm. They walked off towards the health center, with Lee blubbering about how he was going to punish himself, Tenten thinking it was best to stay silent for now (especially after receiving that scowl from Neji), and Neji, overall, not wanting to be there at all.

Yes, it was quite a sight to see. The great Hyuuga carried between a sobbing masochist and a the noticeably feminine-looking new kid. Almost half of the lunchroom was laughing.

Back at the table, Tsuki and Taiyou were still there, wondering if they should go along with them, but thought that Neji was already embarrassed enough. So, they sat silently, slurping some ramen.

"...is Neji going to be okay?" asked Taiyou to nobody in particular.

"Of course. One small tea burn wouldn't injure him," Tsuki said in a matter-of-fact tone. Taiyou glared at him, but Tsuki chose to ignore his friend. "I'm more worried about Hayaite and Neji surviving Lee's speech."

----------------- -----------------

"...and if I cannot do the five hundred pull-ups, I will do seven hundred one-fingered pushups..."

"Uh, I don't think I've properly introduced myself," said Tenten, getting sick of Lee's ranting and had thought that introductions would distract the boy. "I'm Miyamura Hayaite, in class 3-C."

"It is a pleasure to meet such a youthful student!" exclaimed Lee in a such a loud voice that both Tenten and Neji flinched again. "I am Rock Lee, and I am part of class 3-B! I apologize for thinking you were a girl."

"Nice to meet you, Lee," said Tenten, smiling. "And you're forgiven on the girl thing... I'm not very masculine-looking, am I?" she asked, laughing, albeit a little nervously.

"No, you do not! But you are very YOUTHFUL!" shouted Lee in a loud voice, flashing her a smile that reflected lights. Tenten had that sensation that you got right after someone took your picture and used flash; she saw black dots everywhere.

"We just passed the health center," said Neji in a flat voice quite suddenly, as he had been silent this whole time. Tenten and Lee stopped abruptly and turned around; indeed, they had already passed the health center by about four feet.

"Oops..." said Tenten nervously and the three turned around, or rather, Lee and Tenten turned around while still holding onto Neji. When Tenten slid open the door, she saw a man in a green jumpsuit jump up and run up to them. (Guess who...)

"AH! Lee! What a pleasant surprise that my most YOUTHFUL student has come!" yelled the man, who looked way too much like Lee, or Lee looked way too much like him. They had the same bowl-shaped hair and massive eyebrows... though the health instructor's (for he wore a large white coat over his green jumpsuit) were a lot bigger. Immediately, Lee let go of Neji and hugged the man, sending Neji and Tenten nearly toppling onto the floor. Instead, Tenten somehow managed to set all of her weight on one foot so that she wouldn't fall over as Neji dangled helplessly, since both of his legs were useless. The tea still burned on his skin.

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

Somehow, a sunset over the sea appeared behind them as humongous tears gushed from both of their faces. Neji and Tenten sweat dropped simultaneously as a breeze blew past them. The only thing missing was the tumbleweed.

"They always do that," muttered Neji under his breath so that only Tenten could hear him.

She raised an eyebrow and watched as the scene continued. After about two minutes, Neji's legs still hurt and the two seemed to not know that Neji and Tenten were even there. Tenten's patience was wearing thin and she couldn't help but walk over to the two blubbering males and smack their foreheads together, hard.

"Will you guys get on with it?" she yelled, letting anger seep into her voice. "Sensei, you have a patient and you can't just ignore him!" She pointed at Neji, who was sitting in the chair that Tenten had placed him in moments before. "Hyuuga here needs an ice pack for his legs!"

"Gai-sensei! That was my fault!" wailed Lee, as even more tears gushed from his eyes. "I knocked Miyamura-san's arm into his teacup and it spilled all over Neji's legs! Neji must be burning right now—!"

"JUST GET THE DARN ICE PACKS!!"

"Such youthfulness!" exclaimed Gai as he tossed the ice packs to Tenten. That was quick; it had only taken him five seconds to get the ice. After she caught them, she placed them on each of Neji's legs, and the boy winced from the sudden coldness. "You must join our freestyle martial arts team! It is one of the best in Japan, and we have taken the championship for five years in this school's ten-year history!"

'_Don't tell me he's the coach..._' Tenten thought in dismay. "I'll think about it," she said meekly.

"That is the spirit!" yelled Gai, and clenched his fists. "We shall win again with the power of YOUTHFULNESS!!" Tenten looked at Neji, silently pleading for help, and he sighed.

"Gai-sensei, we'll be deaf by the end of the day if you keep talking so loudly," stated Neji in a calm tone. "And you'll be scaring away another potential team addition."

"You are right, Neji!"

Tenten sighed as Gai-sensei blabbered on about "youthful hearing" or something like that and Lee listened to him intently. '_This will be a long school year..._'

----------------- -----------------

"Are you sure you can walk on your own?" asked Tenten worriedly as they went to their next class. Neji was limping slightly, and had two ice packs strapped to his pants by cloths. It would be awkward if he was seen going everywhere holding ice packs to his legs, according to Gai-sensei.

"Hn," grunted Neji.

"Can't you say anything other than 'hn'?"

"I am."

Tenten growled a little and said something about arrogant teens under her breath before quickly looking at her schedule again. "It looks like our next class is poetry..." She perked up. She had always had a thing for poetry and songs ever since she was little.

"Hn."

----------------- -----------------

Their teacher, to Tenten's surprise, was a woman.

She had dark green hair tied in a high ponytail with a white ribbon, and her eyes were a deep red color. She gave the two teenagers a piercing stare when they walked into her class, and her eyes lingered on Tenten a longer.

"You're Miyamura-kun, right?" she asked in a voice that sounded slightly like Tsuki's, except a little higher-pitched. "I welcome you to poetry class, where emotions are expressed in rhythmic words and letters plant pictures in one's mind forever. I have heard of your tea accident from Kurayami-kun, and I advise both of you to sit down now before you miss any more of this class." Some of the class snickered, but was silenced by the teacher's glare. When Tenten and Neji sat down next to Tsuki, she spoke again. "I am Sasaka Bara, your Poetry teacher, but you can just call me Bara-sensei."

"She's strange, isn't she?" asked Tsuki under his breath to Tenten. "She's my father's cousin, though we look nothing alike except for our eye color." Tenten nodded curtly, noting the same red that was in Tsuki's eyes.

"Class, why don't we continue our lesson by having Miyamura-kun reciting a poem for us?" proposed Bara, looking over at Tenten expectantly. She gulped as everybody else turned to her.

"Is an English poem okay? Since that's the only one that I can remember right now..." she questioned meekly, and Bara nodded her head. "The poem is entitled I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by someone from America, Angelou Maya-san." When she opened her mouth to recite it, she couldn't help but notice Tsuki's small amusement and Neji's sudden stiffness.

"Go on," said Bara when she noticed that Tenten was hesitating. Giving her teacher a thankful look, she began.

"The free bird leaps  
On the back of the wind  
And floats downstream  
Till the current ends  
And dips his wings  
In the orange sun rays  
And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks  
Down his narrow cage  
Can seldom see through  
His bars of rage  
His wings are clipped and  
His feet are tied  
So he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings  
With fearful trill  
Of the things unknown  
But longed for still  
And his tune is heard  
On the distant hill  
For the caged bird  
Sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze  
And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees  
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn  
And he names the sky his own

But the caged bird stands on the grave of dreams  
His shadows shout on a nightmare scream  
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied  
So he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings  
With fearful trill  
Of the things unknown  
But longed for still  
And his tune is heard  
On the distant hill  
For the caged bird  
Sings of freedom"

The whole room was silent for a while before Bara applauded loudly for Tenten. She looked up; the teacher had a wide grin on her face and seemed absolutely delighted at the poem. Apparently, she understood English. The other students also clapped after a few more seconds, though most of them had confused expressions, as if still struggling to understand what she just recited.

When she sat down, Tsuki clapped her on the shoulder. "That was a beautiful poem," he said, his eyes shining for the first time that day. "You've got a knack for picking out poems, you know."

Tenten laughed a little nervously. "That was the poem that got me interested in poetry. I felt so sympathetic for the bird and I almost wanted to cry for it. It must have really envied the free birds," she answered. Tsuki gave her a strange look, but didn't say anything else. Tenten now turned to Neji. "What did you think of it... Hyuuga? Are you all right?" she asked when she caught a glimpse of him.

Neji's face was blank and almost completely white so that the only thing that had color on his face were his light lavender eyes and his pale pink lips. His eyes were furrowed as he stared straight forward, and was even trembling a bit. Evidently, he also understood English and knew what she just recited, but his reaction was drastically different from Tsuki's. His expression, overall, made him look like a statue.

"Hyuuga?" When Tenten reached her hand out to shake his arm, he immediately pulled away as if his arm was shocked before she even touched him and he turned his head away from her. Behind her, she could hear Tsuki sigh.

"It's no use, Miyamura," he said as Tenten turned back to him.

"What do you mean?" Tsuki just shook his head and turned his head to the front of the room, tuning into Bara's lecture. Casting one last glance at Neji, Tenten reluctantly listened to Bara's explanation of the poem that Tenten just recited.

(I have never heard of any school in Japan having a poetry class, but I'm making one for the sake of this story.)

----------------- -----------------

For the rest of the school day, Tenten still hung around Tsuki, Taiyou and Neji, but she noticed that Neji was ignoring her. Each time she talked to him, he just said "hn" without even looking up, and left the classroom after a lesson before she could see him go. She had enough sense in her to know that it had something to do with the poem that she had recited in class, but she did not know enough about him to figure out what was going on. That was obvious, of course, since it was only the first day that she has met him.

Neji was avoiding most of the other people as well, but not as much as he was avoiding Tenten. Taiyou was complaining about Neji's lack of reaction when he punched the prodigy (as he had referred to Neji) in the arm, and only gave him a small glare and grunt. Tenten tried to punch him, but he didn't even grunt. Tsuki had tactfully remained silent about the issue from poetry class and reassured Tenten that it was going to wear off sooner or later and Neji would acknowledge her presence eventually.

She was almost glad when a girl with short black hair came in during her last period of the day with a notice from Tsunade. When the teacher, Asuma, excused her, she almost jumped up from her seat and grabbed her things. Taiyou gave her an "are-you-crazy?" look on his face while Tsuki nodded her goodbye and Neji ignored her.

When she arrived in Tsunade's office, she found that her luggage was no longer there. Tsunade hastily hid a bottle that contained something that looked suspiciously like sake from Shizune before telling Tenten about her dorm number and briefed her on the dorm rules. Tsunade then told Tenten that she could skip the rest of the last period and go straight to organizing her things.

After she was given a small map of the dormitory (the one she received that morning was solely of the school from the outside, such as where the buildings were), she exited the principal's office and proceeded to Dorm 3. According to what Tsunade just told her, she was placed in room 325, and Tsunade said that she wanted to keep who her dorm partner was a surprise. After walking for a while, she arrived at room 325. She subconsciously gulped and pushed open the door.

The room was plain, to put it simply. On the bottom bunk of the beds, the sheets and covers were white, and the left-side desk was tidy with a laptop and a pale blue lamp being its sole inhabitants. There were various pictures that hung on the walls, but none of them were particularly interesting and there were few of them. To her right was a door that led to the shower, which was quite clean. Her bags were located to the right of the bathroom entrance, and, to her relief, they were closed and had no sign of being opened. Silently, she took out some of things she packed and placed them on the right desk, including her own laptop and various paperweights, pencil holders and a yellow lamp.

She was glad that Tsunade allowed her to rest for the rest of the day; for some unknown reason, she was exhausted. Not even bothering to change out of her uniform, she climbed up the ladder to her bed with her pillow, blankets and other things essential for sleep, and after putting everything in its place, she immediately drifted off to sleep.

----------------- -----------------

Soft, quick footsteps were heard as Miyamura Ryuhi ran up the stairs of his home, muttering things like "I'm going to be late". He was wearing a light blue summer's uniform for school and his dark auburn hair was slightly messy since he had a vigorous gym class that day. He slamming the door open and winced at the sound, but set down his bag onto the table and opened his computer. His face was red with hurry and exhaustion as the computer booted up, and he logged onto his computer account. Once he was on his own user account, he signed into chat and scrolled down the list.

Both of _them_ were there and were already having a conversation among themselves.

----------------- -----------------

-Fire-Tamer- has signed on.

_-Solitary-Crescent-_ Because you're an annoying idiot!

_-Star-Lord-_ Am not!

_-Solitary-Crescent-_ ...okay, you're not an idiot, but you're still unnaturally annoying. Geez, and I have to deal with you every day, day in and day out and day in and day out...

-_Star-Lord-_ Hey!

_-Solitary-Crescent-_ ...and day in and day out and day in and day out and day in and day out...

_-Fire-Tamer-_ I think he gets the point. Geez, what did you do to get Crescent to be so mad, milord? It's been a while since we've seen the exclamation points in online chats.

-_Star-Lord-_ Don't call me "milord".

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Tamer has a point. We shouldn't use our real names in chats since there's probably going to be a trace in them. Sorry about using your real name last time, Tamer.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ It's all right. But anyway, what did milord do to you to get you so angry?

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ For being his usual tactless self. -.- Simple as that. He may be one of the twenty smartest students in our school, but he's an idiot when it comes to finding people's emotions and what they are going through.

-_Star-Lord-_ I told you guys not to call me "milord". That sounds too much like Hikaru and Kaoru from Ouran High School Host Club. But... hey! You're one of the most observant people in the class, so I'm bound to not notice things you notice.

-_Fire-Lord_- Okay... oh! The whole reason that I'm even chatting with you guys now is that ask how Tenten did on her first day in school.

-_Star-Lord-_ She did pretty well. She was able to hide her identity, and I don't think anybody realizes who she really is. Even the doctor didn't notice.

_-Solitary-Crescent-_ All he did was say she was "youthful", from what we've heard. She was told she looked feminine a total of two times, but that's to be expected. I personally do not think her fake voice matches her current appearance, but nobody else seems to have picked up on that.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ That's a relief.

_-Star-Lord-_ I'll say. I think she's become close friends with Hyuuga and Lee. Lee may not be in the same class as her, but they seemed to get along pretty well. Hyuuga and Tenten seemed to be headed towards friendship at first, but then, for some reason, he decided to ignore her.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ ...you really are tactless, you know. Didn't you hear the contents of the poem Tenten read?

-_Star-Lord-_ Yeah. Something about a free bird and a caged bird that was singing.

_-Solitary-Crescent-_ And you still don't get it even after you just typed that. You know how Hyuuga feels about his position in his home, right?

-_Star-Lord-_ Yeah. But that's no reason for him to ignore her! I was planning on beating the sense out of him, but I didn't want to make a scene...

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ You couldn't beat Hyuuga if you wanted to. He had that Byakugan of his, remember? Even if you tried a sneak-attack, it would have ended up as you being injured with a disabled chakra point. He's in the first freestyle martial arts team, and we're not.

-_Star-Lord-_ But still! The way he treated Tenten was unjustified.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ ...geez. You really don't get it.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Neither do I.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ That is a different story. You don't know Hyuuga and you don't know anything about his position in his home, whereas milord and I do. But still, I hope our plan works...

-_Fire-Tamer-_ What plan?

----------------- -----------------

"Wake up."

Tenten was already on the verge of returning to reality when the voice cut into her dreams. Slowly, she opened one eye, and then the other. '_Am I at home...?_' she thought as she glanced around her. She was surrounded by unfamiliar walls, though the things directly around her were familiar. After lying there for a few more seconds, the events of the day came back to her. She remembered transferring into Konoha, and her being a girl disguised as a boy. She groaned. Why couldn't Konoha have been a co-ed school? Then she wouldn't have to feel like there was a burden on her...

"Hey."

Who was that? Somehow, she did not have enough energy to get up from her sleeping position, so she grumbled and pretended to sleep. She's heard that voice somewhere...

She thought she heard a sigh, and then some footsteps. She relaxed and started going back to dreamland, but, unfortunately, luck was not on her side. It wasn't on her side at all.

She didn't have a lot of time to dodge the shuriken that headed her way, so it missed her ear by a millimeter. She had jumped up and banged her head on the ceiling, hard. Groaning, she fell back on the bed in a sitting position, nursing her hurt head. She was sure she lost a few brain cells because of that.

"Glad to see you're awake," said the voice. She looked up and gasped.

----------------- -----------------

-_Star-Lord-_ Well, you see... we all have dorm partners, whether we like it or not, except for three students who have had come in special circumstances, like scholarships and things like that. However, if somebody transferred into the school, but there were no more free rooms, the special circumstance students could end up with a dorm partner.

_-Fire-Tamer-_ So how does this tie into your plan?

_-Solitary-Crescent-_ Well, after our poetry class, I made a short plan and milord agreed, so I went out after the class ended to the principal's office. I made a suggestion to her, and she agreed with the partner I set up for Tenten.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Wait... she has a dorm partner?! But then there's a higher chance that she'll be discovered!

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Look, Tamer, I picked that person because he is able to keep a secret, and because there's a low possibility that he would find out; he's not the nosy type.

_-Star-Lord-_ For Tenten, we suggested Hyuuga Neji himself, and we're counting on her to mend their budding friendship.

----------------- -----------------

Tenten stared at the person who was on the top of the ladder. His arms were folded, and he balanced solely on his two feet. He was giving Tenten a slight glare as she stared at him as if he had just sprouted wings and was flying around aimlessly. "Will you get out of bed already? We're going to be late for dinner."

"Wait," Tenten breathed, still staring at Neji. "What are you doing here?"

"This is my room," he answered flatly, looking like he would have liked to roll his eyes. "Now are you coming to dinner or not?" He was down the ladder in seconds and was at the door, preparing to leave her behind and go to lunch by himself. Tenten hastily jumped down the ladder (don't try this at home, readers) and hurried after the brisk-walking Hyuuga, all the while wondering if he was the type of person to go to such drastic measures to wake someone up.

Neji didn't talk to her for the rest of the day except to tell her that the shower was ready. Dinner went by smoothly, and they sat with Lee, Tsuki and Taiyou once again. Lee was talking about youth, Tsuki and Taiyou were having an argument again and Neji didn't say anything. Taiyou and Tsuki seemed surprised to find that she was sharing a room with Hyuuga, and Tsuki wished her luck on surviving sharing a room with the cold prodigy. He was probably not going to help her on her homework, unlike other dorm partners, who frequently work together on homework. Even Taiyou and Tsuki worked together, though they usually end in arguments that become off-point after a while. Lee lived alone, as he was one of the scholarship students in the dorm building.

That night, as Tenten laid on the top bunk of the bed, she went through everything that happened that day. She was positive that she was going to become friends with Neji, but something happened and now they were even farther apart from being friends than when they first met. He couldn't still be mad about the tea incident, could he...? She knew it had _something_ to do with that poem, but what? As she fell asleep thinking about these troubling things, wind gently rattled on the window, as the beginning of autumn nears.

----------------- -----------------

"Did you hear the poem Miyamura read?"

"Of course I did. I was in the class!"

"You were in the back because you didn't like poetry, nor did you like the teacher. But still, aren't you reminded of one particular honor student when you heard that poem?"

"Yup. But still, why is he being so cold?"

"Fine. I'll just tell you instead at yell at you. He's afraid that somebody would open old wounds, or get too close to him. He's afraid that somebody will think of him as a coward who is afraid to pick at the cage's bars."

"That's stupid."

"To you, maybe. But being a caged bird isn't easy; you can never take to the sky again if your wings are clipped, as there is an inequality between the wings. Birds are creatures of the skies, not ones that should be put in cages and forced to sing songs to humans."

"I guess you're right."

"What did you expect? I myself feel like a caged bird from time to time. Now if you excuse me, I need to meditate."

"That's the second time today. Oh, right... it's getting to be that time of the year."

"Yes, it is. I'll need to prepare myself so that I can decipher its messages, especially for Miyamura. He needs all the help he can gets, and the first thing on his list of help would be getting along with his dorm partner."

----------------- -----------------

Temisu: Was the Gai and Lee moment too idiotic...? Yes, I know it's strange to have Gai as the health instructor. Don't ask what came through me, since I don't know what I did to make myself write that. And it was obvious that Tenten's dorm room partner would be Neji, wasn't it? Yes, it is highly unlikely that Neji would let himself be carried by Tenten and Lee just because of spilled tea, and for such a long time at that, but let's just say that the tea in that teapot was over 100 degrees Celsius. It's still quite unlikely that he would be injured so long, right? But this is the world of fictions...

Please review. I won't put an estimate at the amount of time it would take to post the next chapter, but it would probably be longer than this time. I have a lot going on and will be on a trip for three days, two nights. Well, anyway, the more reviews I get, even constructive criticism, the faster I type stories. They help me realize some things I need to clarify and they make me happier, and in a better mood in terms of updating. Again, please alert me on ooc-ness. Thank you for reading.


	3. Freestyle Martial Arts

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Disclaimer: I do not own Mulan, Hana Kimi nor do I own Naruto. After all, if I owned Naruto, Tenten would get more screen time. ;;

Thank you for all of the alerts, reviews and favorites, by the way. Did I mention that all of the students are in their second year in high school? I think that this school will have three years of high school... it seems to me that a lot of the high schools in mangas are three-years long. Oh, and the other Naruto characters may appear more in this chapter. Obviously, only the guys are going to be present, but the girls _might_ (that's a hint) be in future chapters.

Sorry it took so long to update. A lot has been happening the last week for school.

The freestyle martial arts teams (I'll abbreviate it as the FSMA team) are based off of the teams in the real Naruto world. I had to switch things up, though, because of the absence of the female members.

WARNING: If you hate scenes when people puke, you can skim the end. I don't think it's too vivid...

Chapter 3: Freestyle Martial Arts

When Tenten woke up on her second day there, the first thing she noticed was that the room was completely silent, and that Neji was already gone. She looked groggily at her clock; there was still an hour until her classes started. Groaning, she punched her pillow before she jumped down the bunk bed and onto the floor. True to her thoughts, Neji was already gone, and she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. She wanted to ask him what was wrong with the poem that she had read, after much thinking before she fell asleep last night.

Slightly frowning, she went about her morning ritual (e.g. brushing her teeth) and put on her uniform, glancing at the windows. They were slightly fogged up, to her slight surprise, but she thought it wouldn't be too bad, so she stuck to her summer uniform. After she got ready, she took a look in the mirror and checked herself. She didn't look too feminine, but she did look less masculine than most, no, _all_ of her classmates.

After almost getting hopelessly lost, she arrived at the cafeteria, ordered her breakfast and went back to the table she was sitting at yesterday during lunch. Tsuki, Taiyou and Lee were already there eating their breakfast, but Neji was nowhere to be seen. When she sat down, she turned to the others. "Where's Hyuuga?" she asked, skimming the cafeteria for any sign of long, black hair.

"Today's the first day of the physical practices," said Tsuki, not even looking up. "As the strongest of the freestyle martial arts group, he has to help the coach set up for the afternoon. After our classes, instead of having physical education, we go off into our respective groups and train, learn various techniques of our sport and practice for upcoming tournaments. Among the groups are basketball, freestyle martial arts and karate, and of course, there's a lot more. What did you sign up for?"

"Freestyle martial arts," she said, and, with a sinking feeling, thought about Gai-sensei.

"Are you signing up for the team?" asked Taiyou, almost excitedly. "We have about thirty members, but we only sign up to be on the team if we want to. So far, only eleven of us are on the teams, and we need one more person in order for all four teams to enter competitions."

Tenten pondered it for a moment before she muttered, "I guess I'll try out."

"YOSH!" yelled Lee, making Tenten jump. "This is perfect! Neji and I needed a third member!" Tenten immediately went pale. The team with a missing member is _Lee and Neji's team_?!

"Yes, they're the ones who are missing a member," said Taiyou, as if reading Tenten's thoughts. "They're the fourth team. The teams aren't determined by strength, and are ordered randomly. For example," he continued, gesturing towards Tsuki, "Tsuki and I are on the second team, but we're both considerably less clever than the third team's captain, Nara Shikamaru. Though our strength may be greater, Nara can defeat us by using strategies and trickery, within the rules, of course."

"What are the team listings?" asked Tenten, glancing around the table. Tsuki shuffled in his bag (yes, he brought his bag to breakfast) and pulled out a piece of paper.

"Here," he said simply, handing the paper across the table. Tenten read down the list of names and rankings.

Freestyle Martial Arts Team Groupings

Please contact Maito Gai if you request any changes in the organization.

Team 1  
Uchiha Sasuke  
Uzumaki Naruto  
Inuzuka Kiba

Team 2  
Kurayami Tsuki  
Hikari Taiyou  
Nozawa Haku

Team 3  
Nara Shikamaru  
Akimichi Chouji  
Aburame Shino

Team 4  
Hyuuga Neji  
Lee Rock (or is it Rock Lee...?)  
-not yet applied for-

"Hey... isn't the only person here who isn't in Dorm 3 Nozawa?" asked Tenten, staring at the list. Taiyou nodded.

"Even though there's not supposed to be a lot of division between the dorms, we do have them nonetheless. Most of the Dorm 3 students focus themselves in martial arts. Dorm 1 focuses on speed, thus they run the track, soccer and basketball teams. Dorm 2 focuses on ping pong and tennis as well as badminton. Dorm 4 has the swim team and other neglected teams, though many people wonder why the swim team isn't centered around Dorm 1," he explained. Somehow, Tenten had taken in every single word of that and slowly nodded.

"Okay... but who's Nozawa, exactly?" questioned Tenten. Tsuki filed through her bag once more and pulled out a twelve-page packet of paper and gave it to Tenten. Tenten flipped through the pages before she saw the name "Nozawa Haku". She glanced at the picture and nearly choked on her piece of toast.

She was wrong this morning when she thought that she looked the most feminine. Haku looked just as girl-like as Kazemi, who was one of Ryuhi's friends, and that was saying a lot. He had long hair and kind gray eyes that looked... pure. There was a soft smile on his face, which greatly contrasted from the one of Taiyou, whose picture was before his.

"He looks very female-like, doesn't he?" asked Taiyou, grinning. "Don't be fooled, though; Tsuki and I were his teammates since first year, and we know that he's not someone to cross. His speed is almost as incredible as Lee's, and his accuracy is deadly, though not completely correct. He's devoted to our senpai, Zabuza, and does anything if Zabuza told him to. Actually, he would probably kill himself if Zabuza was the one who ordered him."

"That's rude, Taiyou," growled Tsuki, taking back the papers. "That's a good trait of his, you know— loyalty. He isn't obsessed with Zabuza or anything."

"His dedication is quite youthful," said Lee, flashing his teeth. Tenten covered her eyes just in time. "He never goes against our senpai's words even if they are unreasonable, though usually, senpai doesn't make Nozawa do anything that would hurt himself, like juggling ten knives or something."

"You have a vivid imagination," said Tenten weakly.

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"Is something wrong, Miyamura?" asked Taiyou during the beginning of class, with Kakashi-sensei nowhere to be seen. "You seem quiet this morning."

Tenten turned to him. He had a book written in English, titled _Inkspell_, in his hands. Tsuki, too, was looking at her, and was also reading a book, though it didn't seem like a work of fiction. "It's nothing," she murmured. "It's just that I couldn't find out why Neji was so cold yesterday. It's going to be difficult living in the same room if he refuses to talk to me."

"He'll snap out of it sooner or later," answered Tsuki, going back to his book and wrote something down. "By the way, when's your birthday?"

"Uh, March 9," replied Tenten, sweat dropping. "But why do you want to know my birth date? It doesn't have anything to do with this..."

"According to your horoscope," interrupted Tsuki, taking out a smaller book, also in English, "you, a Pisces, are compatible with Hyuuga, who's a Cancer— his birthday is on the third of July. If horoscopes mean anything, then you both will eventually mend whatever damage was done and become friends once again." He closed the book. "Many times, horoscopes are wrong, but they could give you hope to go forward."

"I guess you're right," sighed Tenten, looking down. "But still, how am I supposed to get him to forgive me? I don't even know what I did!"

"You'll think of something, or do you want me to take your numerology reading as well?" asked Tsuki, gesturing towards the book he was reading, entitled Glynis has your Number.

Tenten smiled meekly. "Thanks, Tsuki, but I'm okay. I'll try and make up to Neji by myself." She then went back to slouching over her seat, her chin on the desk and her arms wrapped around her head.

Taiyou sweat dropped and whispered, "Do you think Miyamura will be all right?"

"Sure," said Tsuki absently, who continued writing things down. "But just for the fun of it, I'm doing Miyamura's numerology reading. It'll be pretty interesting..."

"Now you're doing Miyamura's? I thought you were going too far when you were doing Hyuuga's, but now this? You're addicted to fortune telling, aren't you?"

"No, but I do like to do it from time to time."

----------------- -----------------

The morning passed in a flash, yet there was still no sign of the Hyuuga Prodigy. Tenten could just barely hear what her teachers were saying, and willed her hands to move faster to take more notes. He was still not present when the bell rang for lunch, when Lee ran into the room and dragged Tenten to the cafeteria, with an amused Taiyou and sweat dropping Tsuki trailing them.

"YOSH! It's lunch time!" yelled the bowl-haired boy as he hauled the cross-dresser down to the noisy lunch room. Tsuki promptly told Lee that Tenten needed air and dragging her around wouldn't help as Taiyou tried to hide in a snicker.

When they sat down in the same spot they were in that morning, Tsuki decided to speak up. "Hey, Miyamura," he said, taking a drink of his tea, "if you want to apply for the freestyle martial arts team, then you better go tell Gai-sensei about it today, since they usually only accept new team members on the second day after a break. You'll automatically get into the team, by the way," he added. "Since one team is already missing a member and nobody else wants to be in the teams, you'll be accepted if you want to compete."

"Thanks..." she trailed off as she counted all of the pros and cons of being in the same team as Hyuuga and Lee. Most of them were cons.

"Oh, and Gai-sensei usually coaches our team!" exclaimed Lee with great enthusiasm. "You will learn many things from him, Miyamura!"

Tenten now wasn't so sure if she made the right choice in joining the FSMA team.

----------------- -----------------

Neji was back by the time they arrived in Bara's classroom. However, when Tenten tried to sit next to him, he curtly got up and moved his things to the other side of the room. Slightly bitter and confused, Tenten asked Tsuki what happened, but he once again shook his head.

"He'll go back to his usual self in no time," the boy said, giving Tenten a small, assuring smile. "Don't worry about him too much; his sulking nature only surfaces for a week at the most... I'm not helping, am I?" he asked sheepishly when he noticed that Tenten's face paled. He was about to say something else when the bell rang and Sasaka-sensei stepped in.

"Good afternoon, class," the teacher said, and got murmurs in response. "Today, I'd like to give a review on symbolism and its uses in poetry. Now, if you will turn to page 703 in your textbooks..."

A groan echoed in the class as the students got out a large, heavy book lined with crimson edges. Tenten glanced towards Neji's direction, and noted that he had opened his book without opening his mouth, though that was to be expected. Her head still drowning in questions, she nevertheless returned to her own textbook.

However, throughout that class, on top of her worries about Neji, she had a chilled feeling in her spine, as if somebody was watching her. Whenever she turned around, everybody was either reading their books or staring blankly off into space.

This proceeded through to her last period, English with Asuma, though without the staring eyes. When she got within ten feet of Neji, he always found a way to move away from her, which annoyed her to no end as well as worry her. Won't he listen to her for even a moment?

At the end of class, Lee once again barged into the room to show Tenten the way to the training field. Thankful for the relief in emotions, she lightly slapped him in the back of his head for causing such a commotion. Lee called Tsuki, Taiyou, and, to her relief, Neji over as well so that they could go to the training grounds together. Taiyou, upon seeing Neji's face, clapped his shoulder and told the prodigy to lighten up, earning him a glare. Tsuki rolled his eyes as he followed the other four, one who was overenthusiastic, one who was in a bad mood, one who was being overconfident, and one who was slightly clueless.

"Did you hear, Neji?" asked Lee, his eyes shining towards his "eternal rival". "Miyamura-san is going to apply as our last teammate! We will finally be a full team!"

Neji immediately stopped in his tracks and stiffened, causing Tsuki to nearly bump into him and Taiyou to almost trip over after a failed attempt to clap his shoulder again. Tenten looked at him nervously as he gave her a strange look, as if he was pondering whether to strangle her or Lee. She averted her eyes and found Taiyou with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, and Tsuki mirrored him.

"Oi, Hyuuga, aren't you going to move from that spot? It's not that big of a surprise that Miyamura's going to be in your team," said Taiyou lightheartedly, though his facial expression didn't loosen up completely.

"Hn," was all the reaction that he received, and Neji resumed mobility, though it was evident that he was deep in thought the whole walk to the grounds. Tenten glanced nervously at him once before she listened to Lee's speeches half-heartedly.

----------------- -----------------

"Just suck it up and try to look like you're paying attention," muttered Tsuki in an undertone to Tenten while passing the girl.

Currently, the teams and other members were sparring with one another to get ready for upcoming competitions and to improve their abilities. Some of the FSMA members, after all, were just there to get more in shape and become stronger individuals and, in some cases, cooperate better with people. Tsuki had apparently gone to a corner in the area to get a drink out of the water fountain and passed Tenten on his way back to Haku and Taiyou.

Indeed, Tenten was not particularly happy at her current situation. Gai-sensei was telling her all of the rules, suggestions, and advice that were present in FSMA history as if she was a newcomer at the sport. There were occasional items of interest, but his loud, ardent voice was a bit too much for her, especially when combined with the fact that he was currently speaking of the basics of FSMA. Taking in Tsuki's advice, she nodded her head occasionally while Gai-sensei talked, but watched the teams spar out of the corner of her eye in longing.

She noted that the loud blonde kid with fox whiskers was fighting with the black-haired boy who had strange red eyes that she did not notice before. Inuzuka was in the sidelines, laughing sometimes when Naruto's face pulled into scowls. The pineapple-haired kid was fighting with the pudgy one, and she watched in amazement when the pudgy one expanded. The boy with small sunglasses on was watching as well, though in a more serious demeanor. Tsuki and Taiyou were also sparring, though, she noted, with considerably more effort than the other teams (though the other teams did put their effort in it). Taiyou's face was in a strangely concentrated look as he aimed a kick an unexpected kick at Tsuki, grazing his shoulder while the boy who she recognized to be Haku was looking at them with consideration, as if analyzing their moves.

Her eyes shifted until they landed on Neji and Lee's fight. Lee's large eyebrows were creased in concentration as he launched kick after kick at the Hyuuga. Neji didn't seem to be even trying to attack as he dodged each and every one of his kicks, though in a considerably slower pace. Tenten was quite entranced in their spar for some reason.

"...and will you be applying for a team?" asked Gai as Tenten snapped back to attention. She nodded. Gai-sensei grinned with the familiar bright smile and announced, "Then you will be with my team!"

Tenten nearly choked on her own spit. "Wh-what?" she asked, trying her best not to look like an idiot.

"Didn't you hear me?" asked Gai-sensei, raising an eyebrow. "Each team is instructed by a teacher. My eternal rival Kakashi surveys the first team, Sasaka-san coaches the second team, Asuma teaches the third team and I am the instructor for the third team!" Tenten stared at him. So, she was supposed to spend an hour a day with Lee's... inspiration? This was _not_ going to be good... "But, today, you'll get to observe and get to know your teammates!" he finished, dragging Tenten towards the whiskered boy, the scowling black-haired boy and Inuzuka.

"Uh... hi," she muttered as she glared at Gai, whose retreating form was turned away from her. "I'm Miyamura Hayaite, though I'm pretty sure all of you know that by now."

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" exclaimed the whiskered one, slapping her on her back, causing the girl to wince and stagger forwards slightly. "I'm going to become the best ninja someday!" Put simply, her first impression of him was a loudmouthed idiot. And he seems to have a thing for ninjas seeing that the more formal name was Freestyle martial arts.

"Shut up," grumbled the scowling boy, casting Naruto a glare. "...and since you already introduced yourself, I am Uchiha Sasuke." From the looks of it, Sasuke was even colder than Neji, and that's saying something.

"Inuzuka Kiba," said Kiba, though she already knew him because of yesterday's incident in the first class. He stared at her for a while, making her slightly nervous. Raising one eyebrow, he said, "Actually, you look even more like a girl up close." Sasuke rolled his eyes as Naruto looked at Tenten more closely.

"I'm a guy," muttered Tenten, hoping that she could hide the fact that her face was turning paler by the second. Naruto straightened up, giving her a quizzical look while Kiba snorted.

"Strange. That's the first thing Tsuki said when he entered the school," he said. Tenten raised and eyebrow, urging him to continue. "He's not exactly feminine-looking, as you can see. At that time, the only other person in our school that looked more like a girl than him was Nozawa, and I pointed that out to him. Of course, he gave me a glare as well and looked like he wanted to punch me."

"Tsuki wanted to punch you?" asked Tenten, surprised. The only person she has seen so far who was able to test Tsuki's tolerance was Taiyou, but they seemed to know each other pretty well.

"Oh yeah!" Naruto looked like he just remembered that incident. "But you just got away with getting your butt kicked in the first day of ninja training by him. Anyways," Naruto continued, grinning at Tenten, "I haven't seen you hang around anybody in your first days here. How about you sit with us during mealtimes?"

"I'm already with Lee, Hyuuga, Tsuki and Taiyou's group... I think," she answered, with an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry."

"You're hanging out with that guy who Naruto calls bushy-brows, the annoying hothead, the ice man and the asexual mystery?" asked Kiba incredulously. He just got a blank look in return. "Bushy-brows is self-explanatory. You'd have to have really bad eyes to not notice that Lee has huge eyebrows. Taiyou is a hothead and is just... irritating sometimes. Hyuuga never smiles. And Tsuki cares even less than Hyuuga when it comes to girls (and that's saying something), not to mention he hates personal questions. And he's not gay; we asked and he just gave us a curious look and answered no in a tone that suggested he thought we were crazy."

"...okay..." said Tenten, not sure whether she should be grateful or not to hear so much information on the others. "I guess I have to go to the second team now. Bye." With a confused wave, she ran over to Taiyou, Tsuki and the feminine-looking boy who she recognized as being Nozawa Haku. "Hey!"

"Hm?" Tsuki turned around, blocking Taiyou's kick with his arm at the same time. "Oh, Miyamura. Nice to see you." He turned back to Taiyou briefly to grab his friend's leg and twisted it, forcing Taiyou, whose other leg was suspended in the air in the attempt at another kick, to do a full turn in mid-air and drop onto the ground. Painfully. "I advise to not put both feet off the ground too much," said Tsuki coldly before once again turning to Tenten. "Anyway, I'd like you to meet Nozawa Haku, our team member."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said the boy, smiling as he took Tenten's hand in his. "I am looking forward to seeing your potential in being a fellow FSMA team member."

"Same here," said Tenten, grinning, and couldn't help but notice that he had blue... nail polish on. His hair was put in a bun at the back of his head and he wore a loose blue outer garment and a turtleneck-like undergarment. Earlier, the five had gone to the locker rooms to change, to Tenten's horror. Taiyou took her horror as a sign that she forgot to bring clothes and lent her a sweatshirt and sweat pants to put over her uniform for the day. She had made a mental note to put on a baggy t-shirt and shorts under her uniform tomorrow.

Taiyou's yell captured the attention of both teens as he was tossed ten feet away from them by an annoyed-looking Tsuki. Growling, he jumped up, made a few hand signs and charged at him. He pulled back his fist, which was slightly glowing, and gathered his speed until he was surrounded by rippling air that seemed to shine for some reason.

Tsuki's expression clearly showed that he wanted to yell, '_Taiyou, you IDIOT!'_ as he jumped out of the way. Taiyou promptly switched his course and slammed into the navy-haired boy in a full-body slam, punching his stomach. Tsuki's eyes widened as he dropped onto the ground, rolled a few times and finally managed to use his leg to halt himself. Slowly, he staggered up, various cuts and bruises evident on his body.

"You just had to use that, didn't you? Well, I'm going all-out now as well, then," growled Tsuki. Completely ignorant to the fact that Haku and Tenten were still watching, he also made a few hand signs. Finally, he yelled, "Kurayami Secret Technique: Cell Regeneration!" His body glowed a strange silvery color as his eyes narrowed into a glare. To Tenten's surprise, his wounds were healing, or rather, his cells were regenerating.

"Not this again," sighed Haku. Tenten looked at him. "Those two always get on each other's nerves at least once a month during practice. All three of us have Kekkei Genkais. Tsuki's main power is the ability to manipulate cells, and among cell manipulation he can destroy and regenerate them. I'm pretty sure he has other parts to his Kekkei Genkai, but he doesn't show them. I do know that all of them depend on the phases of the moon, though, and work better at night. Taiyou's is basically to draw power from the sun and use it to increase his defense, attack and speed, and put it in a high-powered attack. Their names were probably given to them according to their family powers."

"I get it," murmured Tenten, as she watched them try to knock each other's block off. "Do they always fight like this when they're mad?"

"Basically," answered Haku. After about five more minutes of fighting, Haku seemed to deem it enough, walked over, and threw five senbon needles between the two fighters. That seemed to snap them back to reality, as they immediately began apologizing to the two (in different manners, of course).

"I'll have to get going now," she said, smiling. She was about to go before stopping, and looked around. "By the way... isn't Sasaka-sensei supposed to be here?"

"Usually, the coaches aren't here until fifteen minutes into the session, or, in Kakashi-sensei's case, thirty minutes into the sessions," answered Tsuki, wiping his forehead. "Gai-sensei is the exception, of course, since he's the main organizer. Oh, and as a side note," he added, "our team members are usually determined randomly, as are our coaches. The only exceptions are if you arrive at the school late."

"Ah," said Tenten, nodding, before hurrying to the third team. She saw a pineapple-haired boy, a pudgy boy who was eating, and the boy wearing "sunglasses". When she opened her mouth to speak, though, the pineapple-haired boy held up a hand signaling for her to not even start.

"Yes, we all know you're Miyamura Hayaite," he said in a tone that seemed to suggest he's done this hundreds of times. "I'm Nara Shikamaru, the one who's eating is Akimichi Chouji, and the one wearing a green coat is Aburame Shino."

"That was kind of rude," said Shino, hands in his pockets as he looked at Shikamaru for a moment.

"Well, introductions are so troublesome," grumbled Shikamaru, looking up at the sky.

Silence ensued between the four, interrupted only by the occasional chewing of Chouji's chips. Tenten sweat dropped. "I guess I'll be going now, then," she murmured, and slipped away, towards the two males wearing... green jumpsuits... and the unnaturally silent one. When she arrived, a question struck her head. Addressing the coach, she asked, "Um, Gai-sensei, why are you here if you're the health instructor?"

"What YOUTHFUL observation skills!" shouted Gai, shining her an unnecessary smile that was very much like Lee's, except shinier. "Worry not! I still treat wounds for the FSMA teams, but each of the sports groups have at least one adult who has medical training!"

"Gai-sensei, you only do chiropractics and other things that do not require chakra-based healing," said Taiyou from behind him, a huge gash on his face and blood seeping out of his right sleeve. Slightly alarmed, Tenten looked at his wound and then to where she had seen his team earlier. Sure enough, she saw Tsuki standing there, giving Taiyou a scowl, a katana in his right hand, with a little blood dripping on it. "Tsuki said that he couldn't heal this because the moon hasn't risen yet and he doesn't have enough power to heal others."

"Ah, yes! Let us get the disinfectant!" Gai then proceeded to bound off to a different corner of the training area, Taiyou at his heels with a grimace, as if desperately hoping that he wouldn't have to deal with more pain dealing with disinfectants than getting the wounds themselves.

"Is it just me, or do Tsuki and Taiyou share an interesting friendship?" asked Tenten, noticing that Tsuki seemed to feel no remorse for giving Taiyou those wounds.

"Hn," was all Neji said.

"YES, they do! They've known each other for years, though exactly how long, nobody knows!" shouted Lee enthusiastically, or rather, in his usual manner. "They argue everyday, but they actually make good teammates. Despite the fact that they try to take the other's head off every other day, of course."

"I see," was all Tenten could say, staring as Taiyou seemed to yell out in pain as Gai applied the disinfectant and Lee bounded to Gai to help him with the "healing" (old-fashioned, of course). "...Isn't Gai-sensei using too much disinfectant?"

"Less enough so that Hikari would be able to handle it," grumbled Neji, ignoring the fact that Taiyou prefers people calling him by his first name.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "What is up with you?" she asked, crossing her arms. "You've been avoiding me for who knows how long."

"It's none of your business," grumbled Neji. Mouth twitching out of annoyance, Tenten made a fist and punched him in the back. Grunting, the prodigy straightened himself up in an instant, glaring at the girl. "What was that for?"

"Oh, come _on_, Hyuuga!" she snapped, losing her patience with the stoical boy. "I'm trying to help you, darn it! I have enough sense to know that this is all connected to that poem I read yesterday, but why the heck are you avoiding me just because of one stupid little poem?!" (Uh, no, she doesn't really think the poem is stupid. She's just really angry with him. -.-;;)

There was a silence between them. The only sounds that were heard were the yells of a few of the boys, metal clashing with metal, and, if Tenten strained her ears, the crunching of potato chips. She and the Hyuuga were in a staring contest, though it didn't seem that blinking mattered in this one. Each glared at the other with the same amount of force as he/she was receiving.

"If you must know," said Neji after what seemed like three hours (but was really three minutes), "it's that I feel like a caged bird within my family. Happy now?" he finished with a hint of anger in his voice.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" asked Tenten, coming out of her "defiant" pose. "But... do you care to elaborate?"

"Maybe some other time," he answered, still looking a little irritated. She shrugged.

"Sure," she said, and then noticed, for the first time, that he had bandages on his head. It didn't seem like that his head area was wounded (but if it was, it would probably explain his antisocial nature), but she thought that now was not the best time to ask him. Smiling, she asked, "Friends?"

Before he could say anything, he sidestepped to his right as a blur of green landed at the spot he was moments ago, causing a small crater to appear on the ground. Lee lifted up his head. "You are as sharp as ever, my eternal rival Neji!"

"H... how did you know that Lee was going to attack you?" she asked, knowing that she did not see him even turn his head.

"My Kekkei Genkai allows me an almost 360 degree sight," he said simply, and she assumed he referred to his eyes. So, his eyes did have a use other than seeing and glaring...

"YOSH!" shouted another voice as the one and only Gai appeared between the three of them. "Now, we shall begin with training!"

----------------- -----------------

Tenten sat there, dazed, with her arms hurting more than ever before. All she remembered from the last ten minutes or so was that Gai told Tenten to spar with Neji and it had ended in disaster. She saw veins pop around his eyes and when she released her weapons, he created a shield that made each one of them bounce off. That's when he went on the offence and tapped each of her arms a number of times, each tap hurting more than it should. She was then kicked in the stomach and sent flying backwards, and into her current position.

Gnashing her teeth together, she jumped up the best she could without using her arms and aimed an unexpected kick at Neji's head, who thought she was knocked out cold. It made contact, but he recovered quickly and tapped her leg this time. The pain registered even faster this time and she fell over. She wanted to cry out for being so... weak... but bit her lip instead.

There was a sigh above her as a hand came down and touched her left arm. The pain ceased almost immediately. The same hand then went over to her other arm, and finally, to her leg. Looking up, she noticed that it was Neji, who looked a little disgruntled.

Lee looked like he was close to tears. "Neji! How could you injure our youthful teammate on his first day as part of our team?! He does not know about the other abilities of your Byakugan! That was just plain cruel!" he blubbered as streams of water erupted from his eyes. Tenten sweat dropped. It wasn't _that_ big of a deal. Apparently, Neji agreed with her.

"One must prepare for the element of surprise," he said cooly, and after hesitating a bit, offered his hand to Tenten. Slightly taken aback, she took his hand nonetheless and heaved herself up, so that she was now standing.

The rest of the hour was spent like that; each team member sparred with the other accordingly. Tenten didn't spar with Neji again that day, but she got to watch the one between him and Lee and she even sparred with Lee after that. She had to admit that the "Green Beast" was fast; his speed was probably second only to Gai-sensei's. However, she was complimented on her weapon abilities and how she could always be able to hit a target.

When the practice was over, Tsuki and Taiyou came over to their team. "How was your first day in training?" asked Taiyou, with a band-aid on his cheek and bandages wrapped tightly around one arm. He seemed to have trouble moving it, as it restricted his movements. "I see that Hyuuga didn't kill you. That's a good sign."

"I'm pretty sure I could say the same for you," said Tenten, glancing warily at some of the still-visible blood, having seeped through the bandages. "Tsuki, what did you do to him?"

"Just a few sword cuts. They aren't particularly deep," he answered airily. She thought she saw a few faded bruises on his head. "But on another note, I see that Hyuuga finally accepted you."

"What?" She looked at Neji, who was staring at Tsuki blankly.

"In other words, he isn't particularly mad at you anymore," answered Tsuki, rolling his eyes. "I mean, he doesn't offer his hand to anyone. That's his way of saying either 'I'm sorry' or is a sign of forgiveness. Isn't that right, Hyuuga?"

"Hn."

"As an award to Miyamura for finally getting Hyuuga to forgive him for whatever he did wrong, I'll treat you guys to pizza today," said Taiyou, eyes gleaming.

"...This isn't _really_ important, is it?" asked Tenten, thinking that he was overdoing it a bit too much. "I mean, Hyuuga just helped me up from the ground. That's not a reason to celebrate for." But Taiyou and Lee were already way ahead of them, and yelled at them to hurry up and follow him.

----------------- -----------------

The pizza was quite satisfying, actually, especially after the practice. Neji and Tenten each took two pieces, while Lee, Taiyou and Tsuki had four. Truthfully, Taiyou had stuffed the fourth piece in Tsuki's mouth with help from Lee, and the navy-haired boy nearly choked to death (the only people who cared seemed to be Tenten and Lee, despite the fact that he was one of the two who tried to force it into his mouth). In normal circumstances, Tenten would expect Tsuki to beat Taiyou up, but he looked too sick to do that.

"See you guys tomorrow," said Taiyou, waving, when they were in their dorm building. Tsuki had one arm slung over his shoulder and was only half-standing, and he looked green around the gills. Tenten suspected that he had no idea on what was going on as Taiyou heaved him into their room. She heard a dull thud on the other side and then Taiyou yelling something along the lines of for Tsuki to "sleep on your bed instead of on the bathroom door, darn it!"

"Are they going to be all right?" she asked Neji when they entered their own room. Lee had already departed when they ran into Gai minutes before, offering his protégé to go do push-ups by the pond.

"Most likely," answered Neji, putting his coat on the coat hanger next to the entrance to their room. They passed the next thirty minutes in silence as they both took out their homework (Tenten already lent Neji her notes earlier) and the only sounds that could be heard were clocks ticking and pencils scratching paper.

'_If the square root of fifty is the equivalent of the square root of five times the square root of two, then that simplifies that monomial to five times the square root of two, which makes this...'_ thought Tenten as she scribbled her work on the worksheet. Truthfully, everything on the paper were things that they have already learned, but reviewing things wasn't that bad. She heard a pencil being set down somewhere behind her, and she turned. Neji, sure enough, had finished writing something; it was most likely that poem that Sasaka-sensei assigned them. She was about to turn back to her math when Neji turned around as well.

"When I used the Byakugan earlier," he said in a serious tone that made Tenten nervous, "I saw that you had wrapped bandages around your body." Tenten's stomach dropped and her heart jumped to her throat, eyes wide. That's right... the Byakugan could be used to see through things! Stupid, stupid Tenten for forgetting that! She wanted to bang her head on the desk, but she would just lose more brain cells that way. Neji continued. "Would you care to explain to me why you had bandages on?"

Tenten gulped. Was he serious? Did he really not see what was under the bandages? She looked at his face; it was dead serious, and she knew that he really didn't know what was underneath the bandages. She laughed, trying not to sound nervous. "Oh, it's nothing," she said. "It's just a few scars that I don't want other people to see," she added after the first thing that popped to her head; she had heard that excuse from a manga... something Juliet.

"Hn." Neji turned back to his homework without another word, and he apparently accepted her answer. Inside, she breathed a sigh of relief and she, too, resumed doing her homework.

----------------- -----------------

"Ugh..."

A figure stepped out of the shower, shaking uncontrollably. Their eyes were huge as they wrapped a towel around their body. The water dripped slowly from their hair and onto the tiled floor as they kneeled down, next to the toilet. Lifting up the seat, they put their head over the toilet and threw up.

"Hey, HEY! Are you alright?" asked a voice nervously from outside as banging could be heard on the door. "Wait... are you throwing up?!"

"What..." coughed out the person as they steadied themself, "What do you _think_? I'm vomiting, and no thanks to those fou— urgh..." The person regurgitated again, sweat pouring down their face. Their other hand tightened into a fist as they tried to get everything out, and tried not to look at the contents in the toilet. "Ugh..."

"O-oi, should I prepare some water for you?" asked the person outside as the one inside slowly ceased vomiting.

"Yes, that would be greatly appreciated," the person rasped, flushing the toilet. Walking over to the sink, towel still intact, they cupped their hands and filled their hands with water. Then they rinsed their mouth, trying their best to get the acrid taste out. Sighing after that was done, they opened the door.

Taiyou looked alarmed when they came out, but relaxed after a second, though with an unnaturally stern face on. "Next time, _knock_ before you open the restroom door even if you're coming from the inside," he scolded, and tossed them a water bottle.

Their eyes closed as they chugged down the water, focusing on the clean taste of the cold, icy water that Taiyou had somehow preserved. Due to the sweat, navy blue bangs clung to their forehead. After drinking down half the bottle, they lowered the water bottle. "Thank you, Taiyou," they said, and opened their eyes.

Red-orange eyes.

----------------- Half an Hour Later -----------------

"It's almost your time."

"Yes. Just about twenty-four more hours..."

----------------- -----------------

...I'm not satisfied with this chapter... sorry if you think so as well...

In case some of you are wondering (though I doubt it), "Miyamura" comes from the last name of the Japanese voice actress of Larxene from Kingdom Hearts: CoM, I think. Yes, random. But it slightly fits it. I mean, Larxene is in an organization with all males (excluding Namine, who isn't in the ranks, and the mysterious fourteenth member, because she's not introduced yet), and Tenten is in an all-boy's boarding school. I'm pretty sure "Nozawa" is the last name of Vexen's voice actor.

I know that Kiba, Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Shino, Chouji, and Haku had little screen time in this chapter. I'll try to get them in more in later chapters. Sorry about the large amount of oc's.

Well, anyway, reviews are welcome, as well as criticism. Thank you for reading.


	4. The Lady of the Pond

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Disclaimer: I do not own anything... except some of the characters, part of the plot... and I'm most definitely not a real authoress.

Yes, I am now "Artemis Lightmetal" without the nickname "Temisu". Temisu and I actually came up with the chapters together, and I was the main writer. We split up so that one of us will do the writing and the other will do the art (even if it's just so readers get an idea on what the characters look like). We were using her username as the main name before now, but now this is solely my account (though she MIGHT pop in from time to time).

Speaking of chapters, I got a general idea on how the story will go. Just general ideas, though. I've told Temisu and she's working on a few drawings for the future chapters. Whether or not she puts the art up is her choice.

Thank you for the reviews, alerts, faves and views. They encouraged me.

Chapter 4: The Lady of the Pond

"Miyamura..."

"We're roommates, right? Call me by my given name. And what?"

"Fine. _Hayaite_, please stop pulling my collar. I can walk by myself," grunted Neji as Tenten dragged him down the hallways. That morning, Tenten had set her digital watch to beep about half an hour before Neji set the alarm clock at. She had taken a quick shower, changed her bandages, and dressed, all before the alarm clock rang. Her earliness seemed to surprise Neji, though he didn't show it, and he, in turn, did his morning rituals as well. When he exited the bathroom, Tenten, who was immensely bored, told him to hurry up and grab his things. She then proceeded to drag him out the door.

"Well, you were being too slow this morning," she retorted, but let go of his shirt nonetheless. Rubbing the back of his neck to reinitiate the blood flow of the area, he followed her to the cafeteria, scowling. When they got their breakfast and arrived at their table, though, they noticed that the only person there was Lee.

"Hello, Neji! Hello, Hayaite!" exclaimed Lee enthusiastically, grinning from ear to ear as he took a bite out of his meal. "I slept soundly last night! Those pizzas were really filling!"

"Glad to see you're your normal self, Lee," Tenten replied with a small smile. She looked around. "Where are Tsuki and Taiyou?"

"I am not sure," answered Lee, looking up. "I think they are still in their room. They probably overslept or forgot to set their alarm clock last night."

"They're going to miss breakfast at this rate," commented Neji, breaking open his chopsticks. For the rest of the breakfast, the three of them forgot about the absence of the two as Neji stayed silent while Tenten and Lee discussed various things, ranging from the quality to the food to last night's practice.

"Are you fully recovered, Miyamura?" asked Lee, looking at Tenten with concern. "I don't know if that kick was too hard yesterday."

"I'm fine," answered Tenten earnestly. "It takes more than a kick to bring me down!" She clenched her fist, grinning as Lee gave a hearty laugh.

"I'd hate to break it up," said a voice emotionlessly, "but we have five minutes until class starts." Tenten and Lee turned around, and saw Neji, who was already carrying his bag and lightly tapping his foot impatiently. They then looked at the clock and found that he was right.

"Great," sighed Tenten. They both got up from their seats, cleaned up and threw away their trash. Lee departed from their group and to his own class, leaving the two of them alone. The walk to the classroom was mostly in silence, and they got there _just_ as the bell rang. Kakashi, as expected, was still not there, so they didn't get in trouble. Some of the other students were in their seats already, though. When Tenten took her usual seat in front of Neji and besides Taiyou, though, she realized that the boy was half-asleep and the seat next to him was empty.

"Taiyou, wake up," said Tenten, lightly shaking him. Immediately, he bolted up and turned as a panicked look crossed his face.

"I didn't do it! I swear, I didn't... oh, it's you, Miyamura," said Taiyou with a small amount of relief in his voice. "Sorry, I was just having a strange dream."

"We could tell," said Neji with a slight shake of his head while pulling out a book. Tenten ignored him.

"Well, anyway, where's Tsuki? He doesn't seem to be the type of person to skip class. Did something happen?" she questioned, her eyebrow raising a bit.

Taiyou laughed nervously. "Well, he's calling in sick today. I think I shouldn't have forced him to eat that last piece of pizza; he said that he was going to kill me after he got better."

Tenten sighed, exasperated, and rubbed her forehead. "You brought that upon yourself. But anyway, is he going to be all right?" she asked, looking up. "It's possible that he could have been sick from food poisoning."

"If that was the case, all five of us would be sick," stated Neji. Tenten was slightly startled when he spoke; she didn't realize that he was listening into their conversation. "All we can do is wait for him to get better. He'd hate it if somebody worried about him too much."

"Tch, that's true," said Taiyou, smirking. "He hates it when he has to be taken care of. It took me a long time to convince him to let me help him with his homework. His brain wasn't working properly, after all."

Tenten nodded silently, and put her head on the desk. She was wondering whether if Tsuki was going to be all right; he never struck her as the frail type, like her brother. Ryuhi got sick every month or two, and he occasionally got asthma attacks, though it's rarely just from running. Even though she's only known Tsuki for two days, he seemed to treat her like a little sister, or little brother; it depended how someone looked at it.

What do the others think of her... what does Neji think of her? Was he pretending to not know she was a girl when he used his Byakugan? Neji was so cold... couldn't he lighten up even a little? What happened? She didn't know that much about his situation, as much as she wanted to know about the caged bird business. Come to think of it, she'd have to pay more attention to the few pictures he hung up when she went back to the room... And her thoughts went on.

Her reflections had drifted to the other FSMA teams when Kakashi walked into the room and the usual scramble as the students tried to get to their seats was heard. He didn't seem to notice as he turned to the class, arms crossed. As he opened his mouth, though, a loud voice shouted, "YOU'RE LATE!" Tenten sweat dropped, immediately recognizing the voice; it was Naruto, _again_.

"Skipping the excuse," said Kakashi, waving off Naruto, "I have some news for all of you. Today will be a half day, and you will not have classes after lunch, and nor will any of you have to go to your respective sports groups. Most of the teachers will be out this afternoon for a meeting. You can do as you will this afternoon; just don't get into too much trouble. Each class' time is halved, so we only have ten minutes of class left.

"Furthermore, Christmas is going to be in three months, approximately. I know that seems far away, but we have a special event during Christmas that Tsunade-sama will be co-hosting with the co-ed private Konoha High School principal, Jiraiya-sama. I would like you all to buy suits that would be of formal attire; what the event is, though, I will leave for next week." He looked up, surveying his class. "Questions?"

Taiyou raised his hand. "Will this event be mandatory?" he asked, blinking. "I think my parents want me home during Christmas, but that's only if there are no mandatory events for school."

"Yes, it is mandatory for all second years to attend this event; it has been a tradition for ten years now," answered Kakashi, nodding. "It is optional for third years, and first years are not allowed to know of this event. Some of you may not enjoy this, but if you are caught with a fake or unworthy excuse, you will have to do exercises in place of the time that you spent outside of the event. Under the supervision of Gai, of course," he added, and almost all of the room simultaneously shivered. Tenten understood why; if Gai supervised, that person may end up doing three hundred pushups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and laps around the school.

Tenten thought she heard Taiyou mutter something under his breath, something along the lines of Tsuki not being happy about this, but he was listening to the other questions after that.

"...no, I will not tell you what the event is even if you were going to give me the latest Icha Icha book," said Kakashi, exasperated by now. "Tsunade-sama would have my head. But why don't we get off the topic of the event and just wait?" There were a few groans in the room, but they were silenced when Kakashi glared at them through his visible eye. "Because there are only a few more minutes to this class, I will let you all do as you will for the rest of this period, but _quietly_." With that, he took out his Icha Icha Paradise book and read as the students around him chatted.

----------------- -----------------

After going through all of their classes before lunch, Neji, Tenten and Taiyou were met at the door by Lee, who, in contrast to his usual optimistic air, had an outlandish amount of tears gushing from his eyes. "Taiyou! Is it true that Tsuki is desperately sick in bed today, so much that he had to miss a youthful day in school?!" he cried. Taiyou hesitated, but didn't even get a chance to answer. "I knew it was wrong of me to force him to eat that fourth piece of pizza!"

"Hey, I'm more to blame than you are," Taiyou pointed out, looking agitated. "And besides, he's going to be all right. He only threw up twice last night..." Immediately, he clapped a hand over his mouth at that last comment, eyes widening. As all three expected (Neji and Tenten with sweat drops), Lee's tears came down at an even faster speed as he agonized out loud about how it was his fault Tsuki missed school and threw up not once, but twice, in the span of one night.

"Lee," said Tenten, mouth twitching as she tried to snap the sniveling boy out of it by calling his name a few times. That didn't work. Finally fed up, she took his shoulders and shook him violently. "For crying out loud, Lee! It could have been _way_ worse! Just feel lucky he didn't come down with a deadly disease or something!"

"Y-yes sir," murmured Lee timidly and the four proceeded to the cafeteria. Lee was still cringing slightly and Tenten still looked slightly disgruntled. Neji silently followed them, though he wondered how he was supposed to survive, having those two in his team. Suddenly, Taiyou ran off as he said something about forgetting an item. He came back a few minutes later with three pails of paint.

"What are you doing with those?" inquired Tenten as she warily gazed at the three pails. The other two turned to him as well, though Neji's curiosity was well-masked.

"Well... I promised Hayate-sensei that I'd help him paint something that was requested by the co-ed private school's drama teacher. He wasn't feeling very well today as well, and I like painting, so I volunteered to do this for the afternoon," he said sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. There was a blue speck on his forehead, although it wasn't very noticeable.

"I see," said Neji simply and he continued towards the lunchroom. The others followed right after him.

After they got their lunches, they found their usual table occupied by the six other FSMA team members. "Hey guys!" yelled Naruto cheerily when he spotted the four perplexed teens (though only three showed their confusion). "I hope you don't mind us using this table today. Our table is currently occupied by the teachers who said they had to eat lunch in here today."

"...sure," said Neji, sighing. They sat in the empty space closest to the wall. Taiyou chose his seat beside Shikamaru, who was almost asleep (having already finished his lunch). Tenten sat next to him, raising an eyebrow when Kiba and Naruto got into a shouting match on a topic she could not hear. Neji sat next to her, contemplating as to why they were stuck in the same table as Naruto; he had no idea why his cousin Hinata, who went to the same junior high as Naruto, had a crush on him. Lee happily sat between Shino and Neji and immediately started eating, occasionally commenting on how good the food tasted.

"What do you guys think the event that Kakashi-sensei mentioned will be?" asked Chouji out of the blue to the group of four, startling Tenten and causing her to drop her chopsticks.

Taiyou was the first to answer. "I'm not sure," he stated, shrugging. "Whatever it is, we'll be forced to go anyway." He paused and muttered under his breath, "And I'll be responsible for forcing Tsuki to go." Only Lee, Tenten, and Neji heard him, but all three decided not to comment.

"Naruto, you're acquainted with both principals to a degree greater than most of us; why don't you give a guess?" asked Shino, taking a sip of tea. Tenten cocked her head slightly to the right; after all, he rarely speaks.

"I don't know. Believe it," sighed Naruto, scrunching up his face in concentration. "They've never told me anything about this, and I don't think they will."

"For all we know, it could be a dance," said Sasuke monotonously, his statement followed by shudders from all around the table. "After all, the other high school has a significantly lower amount of males than females. But, that is still highly unlikely. And unwished for."

For the duration of the lunch period, the twelve, though excluding Shikamaru, who was sleeping by now, discussed other things similar to the earlier conversation. Tenten got to know how each person thought of things and listened to all of their opinions, occasionally putting in her own. Taiyou had left five minutes before lunch officially ended and staggered back to the dormitory with the three buckets of paint. Tenten offered to help him, but he declined her offer.

After the remaining three bade farewell to the six, Lee ran off, saying something along the lines of training more in private, leaving Neji and Tenten to walk back to the dorm building. Somehow, Tenten had convinced Neji to accompany her to explore the grounds, even though he had already been to most of the places. He seemed disgruntled at first, but he decided to let it go.

"Hey, Neji, can you tell me why Tsunade-sama is the principal of this school?" she asked as her earlier question came back to her. She'd heard, of course, of the great Tsunade, legendary in FSMA, and how she retired years ago. After all, the woman was Tenten's idol. However, Tenten didn't know why Tsunade would start a boy's boarding school, of all things, since she was a female.

Neji stayed silent for a few more minutes before finally answering. "I'm not sure of the details," he said slowly, "but from what I've heard, it had something to do with a bet with Jiraiya-sama on who would be able to open a more successful school that would be solely of students of the opposite gender. Yes, I know it is a strange thing," he added when he saw the look on her face, "but apparently, Jiraiya lost the bet and had to make the school co-ed in the end due to other reasons. There were a few incidents that I've heard of that ended with the principal sporting a large wound in the head."

"O...kay," said Tenten, sweat dropping. She has, of course, heard of Jiraiya-sama as well; he was just as powerful as Tsunade and still is a well-known to be a pervert. She's heard that he has written a book series... right, it was the Icha Icha series. So _that's_ where she heard the titles from. At that moment, Neji stopped abruptly, stiffening, and Tenten nearly ran into him. "Hey! What was that about?"

"Quiet," he murmured, looking towards the pond, his eyes narrowing. Tenten also looked towards the pond, and heard something. It was a female's voice, from what she could detect. Neji regained his mobility and gave her a look that clearly said, "Come on." Nodding slightly, she followed him silently to the pond.

As they had predicted, it was, indeed, a female who was singing. With her back turned to them, all they could determine for the moment was that she had long silver hair tied with a red ribbon. Her dress was a pale yellow color. It was tied by a black sash, as was the strip of cloth-like material that hung around her neck. She was hugging her knees, not caring if the grass stained her dress.

The female was starting a new song, and this time, Tenten strained her ears to hear it. From the look on Neji's face, he was doing the same. The first thing she noticed was that the lyrics were in English.

"_Look at me. You may think you see who I really am, but you'll never know me. Everything, it's as if I play a part. Now I see, if I wear a mask I can fool the world, but I cannot fool my heart. Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me? When will my reflection show who I am inside?_

"_I am now in a world where I have to hide my heart and what I believe in. But somehow, I will show the world what's inside my heart and be loved for who I am._

"_Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don't know? Must I pretend that I'm someone else for all time? When will my reflection show who I am inside? There's a heart that must be free to fly, and I burn with the need to know the reason why: Why must we all conceal, what we think, how we feel? Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide..._ Oh. Hello, there," the girl said happily, when she finally turned towards Neji and Tenten. Her eyes were a shocking golden color that seemed just as intimidating as Neji's pupil-less ones. "What can I do for you?"

"Uh... oh, right," said Tenten, snapping out of it. She and Neji had arrived a few moments before, but she was mesmerized by the girl's words. "What are you doing in this campus? I don't think that it's open to the public, and I know that the only females here are a few staff members." Secretly, she crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping that nobody would figure out there was at least one female in the student body.

"I'm Gin, and I have permission from the principal," answered the female, smiling. "And don't worry; I won't be here for more than a day. I'd like to keep my reasons for being here secret, by the way. But..." She cocked her head, raising an eyebrow. "You two can see me?"

'_Why would anybody ask that?_' wondered Tenten. "Yes, we can see you very well," she said aloud. "But... should we not be able to see you?"

"Only a few people here can see me," answered Gin simply. "You can only see me if you fulfill one of three requirements. One of them is that your Kekkei Genkai has to have something to do with doujutsu, and apparently, yours does." She directed the statement to Neji. "The other possibility is that you have the ability to talk to spirits. Do you talk to spirits?"

"Not that I know of," responded Tenten. "And the third possibility?"

"I'll keep that a secret," she said in a playful tone. Neji seemed to want to roll his eyes at her childish attitude, and Tenten had a bad feeling about the third possibility. "But shouldn't you two be going? I mean, you shouldn't waste your time talking to me when you can spend the rest of your day relaxing or taking classes."

"Then I will be correct if I assume that you are past schooling age, seeing that you're not in your school?" asked Neji, crossing his arms.

She nodded. "I'm a lot older than many people think."

"How old are you, then?" asked Neji, curious. "A hundred?"

"Neji!" yelled Tenten, wrapping an arm forcefully around his neck, cutting his air supply off. "You're not supposed to ask people those things. And I'm sure you're way off; there's no way that she could be a hundred years old!" She turned to the woman apologetically. "Sorry about this," she stated sheepishly before dragging Neji off and leaving Gin waving at them.

When they were just two dots in the distance, she turned back towards the lake, a small smile gracing her lips. "You're right; he is off." Smirking, she laid down on the grass. "I'm _way_ older than that, so that wasn't insulting at all."

----------------- -----------------

"Neji! Please, mind your manners around people. You don't have people skills, do you..." she scolded, shaking her head in disapproval.

"You sound like a mother," he answered gruffly, knocking her arm away from his neck; he was suffocating enough as it was. Tenten went slightly rigid before calming, concluding that he just said that to annoy her, from his disgruntled expression. Truthfully, he didn't look particularly disgruntled, but he did have a small frown on his face, even if it was barely noticeable. "And do you even know where we're going?"

"Uh... no," said Tenten sheepishly, looking around. Gin was out of view, and she couldn't locate the dormitories. There were a few students milling about, but most of them were either in an area outside of the campus or inside the dorms. Beside her, Neji shook his head and walked ahead of her, invisibly signaling to her to follow him. Grunting slightly, she muttered "know-it-all" before she followed him. If he heard her comment, he ignored it.

She was grateful, however, for the fact that in a matter of minutes, they arrived at the entrance of Dorm 3. Once they neared their dorm, they found a surprised Taiyou heading the opposite direction, also to his room. In his hands this time were two red boxes of items, with all the lettering in Kanji.

"What are those?" asked Tenten, staring at the two boxes. They were emitting a strange yet pleasant aroma that suggested that there's food in those boxes.

"Well, I have a cousin in China and today is the moon festival; the day of the brightest full moon in the year," answered the boy, grinning. "He sent me moon cakes. They're items made out of egg yolk (optionally) and a filling inside, though I myself prefer lotus seed filling. They're generally circular and have things written on them. I don't know what went through my cousin's mind, though," he sighed, "since he bought me _two_ large boxes of them. I'm bringing some to Tsuki, of course; he'll enjoy them after he gets over his digestion problem."

"Today's the day of the brightest moon?" asked Tenten, surprised. "But wouldn't that aid Tsuki's kekkei genkai?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't prevent him from being sick," answered Taiyou with a hint of sheepishness. "Anyway, since I obviously can't eat all of this, why don't you two come over to our room?"

"You just want help for the art project, don't you?" asked Tenten, smirking. Taiyou shrugged and led the way to room 322, and opened the door. Neji and Tenten followed behind him.

The room was decorated a deal lot more than Tenten's room, though that's not saying much. There were a few posters and pictures around the walls. There was an open navy suitcase near the door, displaying some clothes sprawled inside them. Half of the room was relatively clean while the other half was messier, but still clean. There were two laptops and both desks were filled with random things, from paperweights to a... teddy bear.

On the top bunk, Tsuki was sleeping soundly in his bed, his sheets covering all but the top of his head. Bits of his hair hung down from the wooden frame, yet his hair was still, for some reason, in a ponytail. Next to the bed were the three buckets of paint and a strange white sphere that would most likely be the target of the paints.

"Here," said Taiyou after he opened the first box and tossed the two circular cake-shaped sweets to his guests, whom easily caught them. "They're lotus-flavored."

Tsuki opened the wrapping on hers and bit into the cake. A sweet taste entered her mouth. She looked back at the moon cake; the inside was a creamy texture and its color was somewhere between yellow, brown and gray. "This is actually pretty good," she commented, taking another bite. "But it might be a bit too sweet."

"Typical for my cousin to pick the sweetest ones," breathed Taiyou in an annoyed tone, taking a bite out of his own cake, and winced. "I'll have to tell Yuui to not go to that sweet shop. Again." He then turned to the two, grinning. "Now, where shall we start with the painting...?" Neji shook his head at Taiyou's behavior as Tenten sweat dropped.

----------------- -----------------

By the time two hours had passed, the sphere was finished, but Neji was so annoyed with Taiyou and his childish behavior that day that he cut off some of his chakra points and left him lying on the ground, writhing in pain, as Tenten and himself worked.

"H-Hyuuga... I beg you to release my chakra point now," pleaded Taiyou weakly as Tenten held up the finished globe with a content grin on her face, eyes sparkling. Bits of hardened green paint were stuck in her hair and there was a blue streak across her right cheek. Neji's hands had a few spots of brown on his hands, but that was all.

"Hn."

"Please?"

Sighing, Neji tapped the area that he had cut off chakra from and Taiyou sat up, relieved. "Thanks a lot. For painting this thing, too; it would've taken a lot longer if you two haven't helped."

"You mean we painted all of it for you," corrected Tenten, shaking her head. "Next time, don't annoy your helpers, especially if they aren't extremely tolerant. Like Neji here," she said, nudging the prodigy, who promptly gave her a glare.

"Technically," sighed Taiyou, setting the finished product on some more newspapers. He looked up at the bunk bed. "He sleeps like a log, doesn't he?" he asked, smirking. "His sense of smell is a lot worse than Inuzuka, but it is better than average, yet he didn't wake up to the smell of moon cakes."

"Is that so?" Tenten was only half-hearing the things he was saying, as she had gazed out the window of the bottom bunk. It had a clear view of the pond, and the silver-haired girl was still there. She was completely still. A few guys were there too, but they didn't seem to notice her at all, even though the sunlight gleamed in her hair. She really was invisible to most people. "Hey Taiyou," she began, catching the attention of the boy, "do you see that girl out there?"

"The girl... Oh, God, what the heck is a girl doing on the campus?" he asked in an almost panicked voice. "She's going to be in so much trouble if Tsunade–sama finds out! Why would there be a _girl_ here, anyway? Wait, is that a girl or is that a woman...?"

"She said she already had permission," answered Neji flatly. "And if you'll excuse me, I'll be going now." He immediately stood up and walked out the door. Taiyou made no move to stop him, and Tenten sprang up as well.

"Neji, wait! Uh, bye, Taiyou," she said hastily before hurrying out the door.

Taiyou just sat there when the door slammed shut. Smirking, he went back to his bunk bed and looked out the window. The girl, Gin, turned around and looked right at him. Both still unfazed, she returned back to gazing across the pond after a thirty-second long-distance staring match. He then looked to the semi-cloudy sky, the sunlight reflectinged in his eyes.

"The brightest full moon of the year, huh?" He got away from his bunk and glanced at the sleeping figure on the top bed. Shaking his head slightly, he said in a semi-amused tone, "You take precautions even when you feel sick and are sleeping, don't you, Tsuki?" Still standing, he looked out the window again, this time a little more somberly. "But I guess it can't be helped. After all, _she_ appears on the surface only once a year..."

----------------- -----------------

"Hey! Neji! Wait for m... AGH!"

Tenten jumped back and nearly slammed into Taiyou's door when a large pail of cold water was dumped onto her head. There was a small silence and then somebody burst out laughing, but she could hear one small "oh no" apart from the person. Resisting the urge to growl and attack the people blindly, she yanked the bucket off her head with a scowl and glared at the people around her.

Kiba was bent over laughing, revealing a small puppy in his hood that seemed like it was laughing as well. Shino didn't look like he cared, but she thought she saw a hint of a smile on what she could see on his face. Shikamaru just stared at her with pity. Chouji was eating his chips, but was chuckling a bit. Sasuke had a smirk on his face, obviously amused while Neji stood behind the group, shaking his head in disgust. Naruto was looking at her with horror, and visibly gulped. Apparently, he was aiming to pour water on Neji, who he had thought was going to be Taiyou when he exited the room, but Neji dodged, making the pail hit Tenten instead.

Her clothes were soaked, and it was freezing cold. Mouth twitching and the pail still in her hands, Tenten growled and Naruto ran for it in breakneck speed. Tenten followed him shortly afterwards, yelling things like "YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT, NARUTO!!"

After a minute, Taiyou poked his head out of the door. "What the heck is going on and who is screaming in such a high-pitched note... oh. Naruto. Figures." He shrugged and went back into the room. "Yes, Tsuki, it's an idiot who's screaming out there. Nothing serious," everybody heard him say. Those who weren't laughing sweat dropped.

After Tenten gave Naruto a thorough beating (he was lying motionless for ten minutes), the guys invited her and Neji to Kiba's room because he had various games and gaming systems in there. Tenten agreed, but she had to get out of her soaked uniform first.

She went into her room by herself; Neji and the others were going to go into Kiba's room first, which was room 321. She grabbed a few articles of clothing that Ryuhi had lent her as well as the roll of bandages that she had securely put in the bottom of her case. She hasn't completely unpacked yet, and she planned for it to stay that way. Neji didn't seem like the type to snoop, so as long as she kept her more feminine items on the bottom of the suitcases or in inner compartments, he shouldn't be able to find out that she is really a girl.

Walking into the restroom, she took off all of her wet clothing and put it in her "to wash" basket. After pondering for a moment, she took a quick shower and came out more refreshed. She was glad her hair was cut short, and that Kazemi actually did it correctly; it was going to be a lot easier to dry. She reached towards the bandages and cut off a reasonable amount to use. She was about to wrap it around her body when she noticed something.

A huge fly was crawling on her hand.

----------------- -----------------

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHH!!!"

The guys turned, alarmed. Naruto jumped about a foot in the air and Kiba turned his head so fast that it was a wonder why it didn't crack. The rest of them had milder reactions, but they expressed surprise nonetheless. Even Shikamaru sat up. They waited for a few more minutes, but there was no second scream.

"...I think that came from Neji's room," said Naruto, opening the door and peering out. Most of the other guys weren't in the building, so few people were disturbed by the cry. Naruto looked back into the room. "That was Miyamura, right? Shouldn't somebody check on him?" All eyes turned to Neji, but he just glared at all of them.

"He's probably startled about something or another," he stated coldly, though he was also wondering what could have possibly caused his roommate to scream like that.

"Is anybody else going to volunteer?" asked Kiba, looking around the room. Everybody just stared back until Shikamaru closed his eyes, sighed and stood up.

"How troublesome... I'll go, in that case," he said in an exasperated tone. People were giving him funny looks, which he pointedly ignored. He walked out of the room and towards the source of the scream, i.e. Room 325.

----------------- -----------------

Tenten took in vast amounts of air as she clutched the towel rack. She didn't have a fear of bugs or anything, but she was startled by the sudden appearance of the fly. She was surprised by its size as well. By now, though, it had flown off to some other place and she had calmed down from her near heart attack experience. Shaking it off, she proceeded to wrap the bandages around her body, reaching for her shirt, when there was a sharp rap on the door, which caused her to jump, and she silently scolded herself. She had been too jumpy ever since she entered this school, and that was extremely unlike her...

"Miyamura!" yelled somebody from the other side, and she immediately recognized the voice as belonging to Shikamaru. Again, she jumped; he was expecting to enter the bathroom, was he? After all, she only said she was changing her clothes, not take a shower... but that would be unlike Shikamaru. He continued. "They sent me. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I was just startled for a moment," she answered nervously, pulling on an undershirt. "You can go back. I'll be fine." She thought she heard Shikamaru mutter his famous phrase before his footsteps sounded, indicating he was going away. Sighing in relief, she finished dressing, dried her hair using her towel, and walked to Shino and Kiba's room.

After answering a few questions, they started playing some video games, including some that were extremely old, like the beginning of the Kingdom Hearts series, until it was time for dinner.

----------------- -----------------

Tthey had split up into their respective groups; Lee was already at the table when they got their food. Taiyou came in a few minutes after them and announced that Tsuki should be able to return to classes tomorrow.

"Of course, if I die because he wanted vengeance for the pizza incident, I'd like you guys to write speeches for my funeral," he finished in a gloomy voice, his head on the table. "I am going to be murdered..."

"Not to worry! I am sure that Tsuki would not kill his dear friend," soothed Lee enthusiastically. That just made Taiyou even more depressed for some reason.

"Oh yeah... he's going to torture me and _then_ kill me," he muttered, sinking lower and lower into gloom. Tenten sweat dropped as Neji shook his head as if he was a lost cause.

They parted ways after dinner and went about showering, brushing their teeth... the usual things. Tenten and Neji were both finished with their homework by nine, and went to bed at nine thirty. Tenten had a feeling that Neji had fallen asleep immediately but she lingered away from the world of dreams.

She gazed out of the window next to her bed. It was a cloudless night and the moon really was extremely bright. It was full and large... she looked back down towards the pond. She thought that the woman had left until she saw a shimmer of silver next to the pond. She squinted. Gin was sitting cross-legged next to the shore, completely still. Her hair and the ribbon were the only things that moved in the stillness of the night. Was she meditating? Tenten dismissed her thoughts on the mysterious female and went back to her pillow, drifting off.

----------------- Midnight -----------------

The full moon shone down onto the lake, illuminating it so that it, too, gleamed. Gin sat cross-legged next to the pond. Slowly, her eyelids began to lift until her eyes were only half-closed, and slowly got up. In the same speed as if she was moving in the water itself, she walked to the water, as if in a deep trance. Kneeling down, she extended her palms and fingers and placed them on the water. The pond rippled where her hands touched, but she did not sink.

Almost immediately after the ripples subsided, images flashed in the water between her hands.

Tenten wearing a dress... Ryuhi running up the stairs of his house wildly... Taiyou with a girl with normal blue hair... The girl embracing Tenten like a mother... Shikamaru talking with Shino... A pale-eyed girl blushing, Naruto beside her with his normal expression... A pink-haired girl looking at Sasuke in adoration... A blonde-haired young woman hitting Shikamaru over the head with a small fan, a larger fan strapped to her back... Another blonde-haired female, though younger, giving Chouji a fruits basket... Lee hugging Gai... Kiba and Akamaru running after something... Neji wearing a suit... Trees blowing in the wind... Tears... Blood...

This continued for a few more minutes, the images getting sucked into her hands as they appeared. A warm glow was crawling up her arms, spreading to the rest of her body. By then, the images had appeared at much slower paces, and eventually stopped. Gin's eyes were still half-closed and glazed as she removed her arms from the water as two massive wings erupted from her back. Each were brown bat/dragon wings, and glowed as if they were made of pure energy. She lowered her arms and kicked off the ground, soaring into the sky. Her eyes were still lifeless, however; she looked like she was stuck in another world.

She soared upwards until she arrived in front of the large moon. Her glow seemed to be fading, and she turned to face the campus; her front side was shadowed, as the light source (the moon) was hitting her back. Like a haunting phantom, her pale yellow dress billowed silently in the wind in tempo with her sleeves, hair and ribbon. She stayed like that for some more time and then flew.

Towards the dormitory.

----------------- -----------------

"Must you always arrive so late at night after your meditation periods?"

"Well, excuse me. I'm not exactly young, you know; I've lost count of how many years I've seen go through me."

"Whatever. Anyway, what did you see?"

"'Please' always helps."

"Sigh... fine, _please_ tell me what you saw in your annual reading."

"Many... interesting things. This reading was a lot more interesting than last year's, at least. The most attention-worthy thing in my last vision was about Miyamura attending this school."

"What about... well...?"

"...you don't even want to know... I myself wish I didn't see that."

"Okay... I wonder how Miyamura's doing, surviving this? He seems to fit in well."

"Stop playing around. Nobody's eavesdropping."

"...Fine. Then I'll just say that I'm wondering how well that person is fairing...

"_She_ seems to fit in well, that Tenten, don't you think?"

----------------- 4 AM -----------------

"Ugh... I have to start on my homework... Taiyou, what the heck are you doing up so late?" asked Tsuki, popping a vein as he sat up on the bunk bed, now healed. Taiyou looked at him sheepishly.

"I can't figure out this one problem," he said meekly. Tsuki sighed in exasperation and jumped down from the top bed. Walking over, he observed the math problem and slapped his forehead.

"You're a real idiot in math, aren't you?" he asked, shaking his head. "Fine. I'll go get my notes out as well..." Still disgruntled, he walked over to his bags and accidentally bumped into the bookshelf. He cursed his own clumsiness.

He would be cursing a lot more in a moment.

The bucket of paint on the top shelf wobbled, fell off, hit Tsuki in the head, and drenched him in paint. "..."

"Oh, god," squeaked Taiyou, standing up and backing up until he hit the door. Tsuki's aura was slowly becoming darker and darker as he clenched a fist until his knuckles turned white. He turned and, with a menacing face on, he slowly advanced towards Taiyou.

"Hikari, why was there a paint can put so loosely on the top shelf of that bookcase?" he asked in a venomous voice, emphasizing the words "Hikari", "paint" and "bookcase". Taiyou just shook in fear. "Consider yourself dead... and write an epitaph or tell it to me so I'll write it down later..."

----------------- -----------------

...Don't worry, Taiyou won't be hurt. Much. He seems to suffer way too much in this story, doesn't he? And sorry for adding another oc... though I can tell you that it's not really "another" oc and will most likely not appear for a _long_ time.

Just to clear this up now, I have nothing against Gai and Lee. After all, my favorite team is Team Gai as a whole, including those two. Actually, I have nothing against any of the characters.

That was boring, wasn't it? I at least put the rest of the team in there more... Oh, and remember to pay attention to details. Well, anyway, please review; that would help me a lot in updating.

Also, many, MANY thanks to my beta-reader, Zaywex. She saw tons of grammatical errors that needed to be fixed. ;;


	5. Bad Days

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Many thanks for the reviews. Actually, reviews are probably the reason I even bother to write fanfiction.

Chapter 5: Bad Days

The early morning passed normally; Tenten and Neji had done their morning rituals quietly and were out of their room within half an hour. Once again, Taiyou and Tsuki were both absent from the cafeteria for breakfast, and Lee once again proclaimed (tearfully) that it was his fault for shoving the pizza down Tsuki's throat. Tenten had learned by now the best course of action was to ignore his rants. When he got too loud and blubbered too much, though, she snapped and hit him over the head, hard.

The two were nowhere to be found in the classroom either when Neji and Tenten arrived, so they silently went to their seats. Two minutes before the bell, though, the familiar brown hair rushed through the door, Tsuki right behind him.

"G'morning," Taiyou mumbled. Tenten was about to reply when she noticed that he sported several bruises, a black eye, a scabbing wound on his arm and a wearied smile. Rather than get worried, though, Tenten sweat dropped and glanced at Tsuki. Unsurprisingly, he had a murderous aura about him and was still glaring at Taiyou with his red-orange eyes.

Wait... what?

"Tsuki, why do you look different?" asked Tenten, raising an eyebrow. Tsuki temporarily calmed down and looked at Tenten curiously, as if silently asking her to elaborate. "I mean, why are your eyes that color and why is your hair... metallic blue?" she finished, staring at his hair. It was, indeed, a shinier and lighter blue than his usual color, but blue nonetheless.

"I'm wearing contacts," replied Tsuki. "My vision is blurry around the time that I get sick, so I have to wear them. As for my hair... Taiyou put a bucket of paint dangerously close to the edge of the bookshelf and it plummeted onto my head. It took a long time to get the paint out." He then went back to glaring at Taiyou, scratching a small brown patch on his neck.

"So you beat him to a bloody pulp," finished Neji in a slightly incredulous tone.

"For the pizza incident as well. Oh, and for calling me 'Tsubame-chan' again, for feeding my pet fish too much food so it was killed last month, for making me nearly throw up again because I had to smell paint fumes, for using his Kekkei Genkai again... wait, I already punished him for that, so scratch that last part," he responded, ticking off the things in his hands. "Actually, there's a lot more, but it'd take a few days if I were to talk about all of them."

"...hn."

"I guess that's... interesting?"

"S-sorry, Tsuba... erk." Taiyou's face paled at his little slip as Tsuki smacked him in the forehead.

"So I guess everything's normal, thankfully," said Tenten, smiling. Neji silently nodded.

----------------------------------

The following month passed by swiftly for Tenten. She had sparred some more with Neji and Lee, and even trained with the other teams from time to time. The times that Taiyou was injured decreased greatly after the first day, but he was consistently scolded by Tsuki nonetheless. It stayed that way until the first day of October. She came to regret going to school that day, and, from the look on Neji's face, so did he.

It was a normal morning; the five had gone through their breakfast rapidly. Kakashi didn't arrive until ten minutes into the class period, in which Tenten listened idly to Tsuki and Taiyou arguing about something that had to do with the FSMA team. After the normal routine in which Kakashi gave an excuse and Naruto accused him of lying, he became dead serious.

"Tsunade-sama has given me the information on the required event," he said, pulling out a few pieces of paper. "And the event is... well, to put it simply, a ball."

The next few minutes in the class were utter chaos. Some of the guys dropped their jaws in total disbelief and horror while some cheered. Others seemed indifferent. Tenten was one of the ones in disbelief, as was Taiyou. Tsuki looked like he wanted to strangle something and Neji, well, looked indifferent, though she thought she saw a hint of a glare in his eyes.

Tsuki banged the table with his fist, hard, which was ignored by most of the students. His teeth were tightly grit as he refrained from kicking a hole in the ceiling too. His eyes, which were mahogany again, were glaring at the board; it had been a while since he's been so furious. Taiyou slowly scooted his chair away from his friend, and turned to Tenten instead. "What the heck were they thinking?!" he half-yelled.

"I have no clue, but I can tell you that I hate the idea," replied Tenten as thousands of thoughts rushed through her head. She would have to dance with another girl, and that would be impossible. Maybe she could be a wallflower...? That was an idea. She was sure she wasn't going to be the only one, seeing from some of the reactions of the other students.

There was a loud bang as Kakashi slammed two textbooks simultaneously onto his desk, looking slightly annoyed. The room went silent. "As I was saying," he said, frowning behind his mask, "this event requires us to meet each Sunday with Jiraiya-sama's school, and you have to pick a partner by Christmas." Various groans went through the class, including from Tenten. She had to get rid of her previous plan. "All of you are expected to wear formal attire, as in suits that wouldn't embarrass you. You will have dance lessons in place of sports practice every Tuesday and Thursday so you will know what you're doing during the dance. Questions?"

Silence reigned as the boys tried to take in all the information. "Good. Oh, and Tsunade-sama has requested that Miyamura and Kurayami to go to her office right now," he added. Tsuki shrugged impassively, though still slightly mad, while Tenten got up, getting ready for the worst. They marched out of the room and walked to the headmistress' office.

They found Haku already there with his pleasant smile. Tsunade looked up. "Great timing," she said. "I'm assuming you all know about the dance by now?" All three of them nodded, though Tenten and Tsuki did so with contempt. "Good. Well, the thing is, Jiraiya's school is short in girls, and the number of boys total is greater than the number of girls by six, so we need you three to dance as girls."

Silence. Again.

"...you have got to be kidding me," said Tenten as the information registered in her head, taking a step back. "We have to dress up as _girls_? And dance with _guys_?" Truthfully, she felt a lot better at that idea, but she was acknowledged as a guy in this school, and she did not want to dance with somebody who thinks she's the same gender as he is. "Why us?"

"Because you three look the most... well, no offence, but the three of you look the most feminine out of all of the students," Tsunade said in a slightly sheepish voice.

"What about Hyuuga?" asked Tsuki, crossing his arms with a scowl. "His hair is long enough.'

"But the problem is, he'd kill somebody in the process and his features aren't as feminine," answered the headmistress, albeit a bit nervously. Tsuki popped a vein.

"You're saying we act like girls?" asked Tsuki in a dangerous tone. "I do wish that females would have more rights, seeing that it's what my parents taught me, but _this_?" Tenten didn't think that Tsuki acted like a stereotypical girl. Many people thought of females as more emotional than males, and that was untrue unless it involved getting annoyed at Taiyou.

"No, but you do look the most feminine," pointed out Tsunade, wincing at Tsuki's murderous aura.

There was a small silence in the room. Tsunade was looking at Tsuki nervously as he seemed to ponder what to do. Tenten glanced around; Haku was the only one who seemed completely calm. The tension was thick and nobody dared to talk until…

"Fine."

All heads turned to the source of the voice, eyes wide. Tsuki sat down on the chair, arms crossed with a visible scowl on his face. "Fine. I'll do this darn, cursed task. It'll save people like Hyuuga from dying of embarrassment if they were to do this. So what if I had to wear a dress multiple times until Christmas for rehearsals? I'll just have to suck it up," he mumbled in a speech-like style, though he didn't hesitate to put in several sarcastic remarks. He then glared around the room. "However, I have to get along with, or know at least one of the other people forced to do this task if Miyamura and Haku here don't agree."

"I will do it," said Haku serenely. That was quick.

Tenten, however, hesitated some more. Dressing up as a guy dressing up as a girl could potentially blow her cover, especially to more observant people, whether they were male or female. She took another look around the room. Haku was, of course, looking kindly at her. Tsuki's face didn't show whether or not he wanted Tenten to do it as well, but just told her that he wanted an answer. Tsunade, well, she was just impatient.

Taking in a breath, she said, "Okay." Tsunade grinned at this and clenched her fist in success, obviously happy that she didn't have to pull out other boys who would be less cooperative.

"That settles it," she grinned and handed out papers. "You all will have private lessons apart from all of the other males and apart from the females as well with a specialized dance instructor that is used to doing female parts. I will give you more information later, but here are the basic details. You are all dismissed."

Haku was the first to leave, his face fairly indifferent on the matter. Tenten was a bit more reluctant to go. She still had a few more questions to ask Tsunade, but she bit her tongue; everything would be revealed soon. Tsuki stopped at the doorway and waited until the other two were safely out of hearing range.

His back still facing Tsunade, he asked, "You love messing with us, don't you, Tsunade-sama?"

"You've got that right," responded Tsunade, smirking. Tsuki lingered there for a few more moments before he, too, walked off briskly, his face betraying his irritation, mixed in with a trace of amusement.

----------------------------------

"..."

"..."

"You two are unusually quiet today," stated Taiyou as he started his lunch, glancing at the two. Neji also looked up with mild interest. "Care to tell us what happened in Tsunade-sama's office?"

"..."

"..."

"Is it really that bad?" inquired Lee rather innocently. Tsuki gave him a small glare before he resumed his pretend-they're-not-there attitude, his chopsticks walking aimlessly on the plate of food. "...yes?"

"Do you three _really_ want to know?" asked Tenten, exasperated as she looked around the table, glaring at all of them. Lee and Taiyou nodded in unison. Neji just stared at her, so she took that as a yes as well. "Should I tell, Tsuki?"

"...whatever," breathed the annoyed boy, drinking all of his glass of water before refilling it. Tenten assumed that he didn't really care what she did.

Sighing, she looked up. "You guys know about that Christmas event, right?" They all nodded. "Well, there's a shortage of girls in the other school, so, well..." She couldn't bring herself to say the next few words. Lee and Taiyou made hand gestures as the signaled her to go on.

Tsuki sighed as well. "...we're filling in for a few girls' parts," he finished for her.

"..."

"..."

"..."

After about fifteen second of complete silence at the table, Lee dropped his chopsticks at the same time that Taiyou choked on his piece of broccoli. Neji winced slightly, as a trace of sympathy crossed his face, but that was it.

"Are you serious?" asked Taiyou incredulously, looking in between the two more "feminine-looking" members of their group. "Tsunade-sama seriously asked you to do that?" Tenten slowly nodded.

Taiyou burst out laughing as he pounded on the table, earning them weird looks from people passing by the group. Tsuki glared at him and hit him over the head so that he nearly splattered into his lunch.

"That seems quite unlucky," stated Neji with a tiny smirk.

"Shut up," muttered Tenten, her face turning red. "You're fortunate you weren't picked; you were probably the fourth one on the list." He frowned at that, gave his trademark grunt, and returned to his food. Tenten grinned in triumph and, ignoring the shocked look on Lee's face, resumed her lunch.

It was actually a peaceful lunch. Lee was so surprised that he had eaten his food in a daze while Tsuki and Taiyou refrained from another round of shouts.

----------------------------------

Tsuki and Tenten were pulled out of class again in the middle of poetry class. Sasaka had looked disgruntled when she was analyzing a haiku, but she dismissed them nonetheless with a wave of her hand, allowing them to follow Shizune. Tenten was wondering what happened this time, and the only conclusion she could draw was that it had something to do with the dance. Hopefully, the people of that other school had miscounted the number of girls and they were going to dance the male parts.

Again, Haku was already at Tsunade's office when they arrived and the principal was grinning at them mischievously. Tenten thought she felt her friend tense beside her as his mahogany eyes narrowed in a hard glare at the legendary fighter.

"What is it this time?" he snapped, not even bothering to use honorifics as the poison seeped out of his mouth. "I was hoping that you were going to cancel the cross-dressing thing, but apparently, I'm going to be disappointed. Miyamura here was thinking the same thing, right?" The sudden address by Tsuki startled Tenten, and it took a second for her to register what he said. She was surprised at how he had read her mind, but he was probably just assuming; she didn't bother to hide her contempt for the subject at lunch, after all. Silently, Tenten nodded.

"Well, that certainly hurts, Tsuki," said Tsunade, her smile vanishing as she returned the glare. "But you are right on one point. The cross-dressing idea has not been withdrawn. Instead, I was going to inform all of you that you all have a special delivery." Her eyes twinkled as she nodded to Shizune. All eyes turned to the assistant as she sighed and, giving the three sympathetic looks, took out a box. Slowly, she took out three items packed in separate plastic, completely transparent bags.

All three of the students gaped. Even Haku, who was usually either pleasant, stoical or deadly, looked at the items in her hand like they were talking six-legged panda cubs with three eyes. For in her hands...

Were three dresses.

Snap.

"WHAT!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" exploded Tenten, pointing at the sadistic little articles of clothing. Everybody jumped; all of them had expected Tsuki to yell, not Tenten. "IS THIS SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE THAT YOU'RE PLAYING ON US?! WHY THE HECK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO WEAR THOSE WHEN THE DANCE WON'T HAPPEN MONTHS FROM NOW?!"

There was a ringing silence in the room as Tenten's voice echoed down the halls; Shizune had forgotten to close the door.

----------------------------------

"For homework, I'd like all of you to write a haiku of your own that has some importance in your life. It's going to be due tomo—"

"WHAT!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" shouted an extremely loud voice that seemed to come from the hallway. Most of the students jumped in reaction, and Sasaka accidentally banged her head against the whiteboard as she wrote down the homework. "IS THIS SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE THAT YOU'RE PLAYING ON US?! WHY THE HECK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO WEAR THOSE WHEN THE DANCE WON'T HAPPEN MONTHS FROM NOW?!"

An eerie silence hung in the air. Slowly, some of the students walked over to the sliding door of the classroom, opened it and looked out. Similarly, other doors were opened and various students poked their heads out, curious about the monstrous voice that had reached the remotest ends of the school. After a minute of nothing, though, the doors began to close and the classes returned to their original schedules.

Neji, who sat in the front of the room, thought he heard his teacher mutter, "Tsunade better not be torturing them too badly..." He made a mental note to ask his roommate what happened after practice.

----------------------------------

"I think my eardrums bursted," groaned Tsuki as he massaged his ears. "Why did you have to scream that loudly, Miyamura?"

"I know it's a surprise," said Tsunade, raising and eyebrow, "but why did you overreact? Even Tsuki here wasn't that surprised, and Shizune only scolded me when she first saw the dresses."

"What do you expect?" asked Tenten, seething. "There is no reason for you to make us wear the dresses before the appointed date of the dance, and maybe some days before that for the measures. Wait, how do you know our sizes?"

Tsunade smirked at this. "Didn't you know? One of the questions in the registration forms for this school was 'What is your clothing size?' Many people thought it was crazy, but we had that on there for a reason. It helped us in the physical exams. Besides, we ask that question every year." Her smirk widened when she saw Tenten's eyes grow larger. Oh yeah, Ryuhi said something about a strange question before. She didn't know he meant it was this strange... and she was lucky that Ryuhi was short for his age and that they were around the same size.

"But still, what is the point in giving us these dresses now?" asked Tsuki, raising an eyebrow as he crossed his arms. "I mean, like Miyamura said, the dance won't be for ages, and quite frankly, I wouldn't want to prance around the halls of this school sporting a dress."

When Tsunade's grin grew, the three students instinctively stepped back. "Well, the thing is, we'll need to see if these dresses are appropriate for you three and that you all actually look feminine enough in them," she said with obvious amusement.

"What do you mean, Tsunade-sama?" asked Haku in the most respectful tone he could get out.

"I mean..."

----------------------------------

'_Darn this whole event,_' thought Tenten acidly after practice. She had been a lot harder on her team than usual, and she was actually able to put up with Lee's speed and dodged half of Neji's moves instead of being forced to block. She used weapons much more and didn't fall for most of their traps. Her aggressiveness had taken all three males aback and she managed to pin Gai-sensei to a tree when he approached her.

It definitely wasn't usual for her to be so belligerent during practice; most of the time, she was more calm and collected even when Neji had struck her chakra points. Today, however, she went all-out on him when he tapped a point on her arm, which surprised the prodigy. After dodging a flurry of shuriken, kunai and knives, letting one scar his shoulder, he had finally agreed with Lee and Gai's cries that she was furious today.

Actually, she had given him and the others a cold shoulder ever since that meeting with Tsunade. Tsuki had seemed in mildly worse spirits than usual as well, but he didn't snap at everybody who tried to ask him something. Both had stubbornly refused to let any information on the meeting out, though Tenten had done it in a more threatening manner.

After practice, she didn't bother to say anything to the others as she stomped off, using chakra strings to return her weapons into her scrolls. She grabbed her bag, clothing and other various items and headed straight towards the dormitories. If you haven't figured it out yet, the dormitories are located in a different building from the school.

She went into her room and slammed the door shut. Neji was still getting his things in the training grounds. Growling, she threw down her things roughly and climbed up to the second bunk. She grabbed her pillow and yelled into it at the top of her lungs, but her voice was muffled by the fluffy item. She wanted to punch it too, but she already got most of that need during practice, since she let out her anger on her teammates, though she didn't hurt them much.

As Tenten's anger slowly subsided, she jumped down from the bed and walked briskly into the restroom. She needed to take a shower in order to cool off. However, before she did that, she used the toilet, and came to an unhappy discovery. The bottom of her underpants were stained crimson and some of the blood had leaked to her outer layer.

Cursing puberty, she punched the wall before she ran out of the restroom, searching for a sanitary napkin to add to the pile of clothes she had gathered in the restroom.

As luck would have it, Neji came in right after she stuffed the thing into her pocket.

"Hayaite?" Neji raised an eyebrow as Tenten looked at him, stuffing the just-hidden pad farther into her pocket. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," she answered, trying to keep the contents of her pocket out of the view of her teammate. "I was going to take a shower. You just startled me."

"Hn." Tenten relaxed at his normal response, but stiffened when he spoke again. "You know, there's blood on you pants."

"Just a little injury; nothing big," she said casually, trying to put on a smile. Darn it, her stomach area was starting to cramp... "I wasn't being careful on the way back and I accidentally stabbed myself with a kunai. I'll get it wrapped up," she lied, gesturing towards the bandage that sat on top of her pile of clothes through the open restroom door. Neji nodded silently and went to do his own business, though he was slightly skeptical. Tenten, glad that _something_ went right, raced back into the restroom and took her much-needed shower.

When she got dressed, she walked out the door and then stood, frozen solid, as she just remembered what her task that night was. Sighing, she turned to Neji. "Hey, I have to ask you a favor."

"What?" asked Neji, looking up from the book he was currently reading. She gulped.

"Can we have Lee, Tsuki and Taiyou come over tonight for about half an hour?" she asked. Neji shrugged, and she took that as a yes. "Thanks."

That night, Tenten invited the said people over to their room, saying that she had something to ask them. She exchanged unnoticed glances with Tsuki, as they knew what they were supposed to do and neither of them was looking forward to it.

After dinner, the five of them headed to room 325. Tsuki had stopped at his room on the way and had come back out with an opaque bag carrying various unseen items. When the whole group was assembled in front of the door, Tsuki and Tenten ordered the three to stand outside until they were ready. Confused, they stood outside and waited.

----------------------------------

Inside the room, Tenten and Tsuki looked at each other glumly. "Ready, Miyamura?" asked the taller of the two. Tenten nodded solemnly. Tsuki, with his bag, walked into the restroom.

----------------------------------

"What are they doing in there? It has already been ten minutes!" wondered Lee out loud, looking intently at the door. "Neji, can you use Byakugan on it?"

"No," answered Taiyou for the prodigy. The two gave him weird looks. "What? Tsuki hates it when people sneak up on him outside of the practice sessions, and frankly, using a Byakugan on him is worse than sneak attacks. Besides, the two of them are probably just talking to each other or something."

Lee pouted but stayed silent for the rest of the waiting time. Neji closed his eyes and leaned against the opposite wall, attempting to meditate, while Taiyou tapped his foot impatiently.

----------------------------------

"Miyamura, are you ready yet?" asked Tsuki from behind the bathroom door. Tenten nodded, but Tsuki obviously didn't see her. "Miyamura?"

"Yes," answered the girl, biting her bottom lip. Tsuki opened the door and Tenten staggered back a few steps, taken aback.

Tsuki raised an eyebrow. "Let's go," he stated.

----------------------------------

All three of the students outside of the door looked up when a voice sounded from the other side. "Okay, you three can come in now," said Tenten's voice from the other side. Neji was the first to react and he turned the knob on the door, flinging it open. He walked in, but he came to an abrupt halt, raising an eyebrow. Taiyou, who was following right behind him, bumped into the prodigy.

"Ow! Hyuuga, don't stop without warni..." Taiyou trailed off when he figured out what caught his attention and his jaw dropped. "You're kidding me..." Lee bounded in after them, but he also stopped as his already large eyes became rounder.

"How do we look?" asked Tenten grimly as she stood next to Tsuki. But that wasn't all.

They were wearing dresses.

----------------------------------

…uh, I apologize for those who were mentally scarred by the female puberty thing (though I don't think that's many of you), but this IS a rated T fic… Is Neji too ooc? But anyway, I was slightly amused when I typed this chapter up. Many thanks to my beta reader Zaywex for editing.

Anyway, please review (criticism is always welcome). And check out my new story, Two Meanings, One Task! ... ... I sound like an advertiser... ...

Happy Holidays! I couldn't go on the internet for four days, so I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	6. Secrets of the Night

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Disclaimer: Kishimoto-sensei, Nakajo-sensei and... Disney(-sensei?) would have made this fic a lot better if they were writing it. So no, I do not own Naruto, Mulan and Hana Kimi.

Wow... it's already the sixth chapter. On with the story!

Chapter 6: Secrets of the Night

-recap-

_All three of the students outside of the door looked up when a voice sounded from the other side. "Okay, you three can come in now," said Tenten's voice from the other side. Neji was the first to react and he turned the knob on the door, flinging it open. He walked in, but he came to an abrupt halt. Taiyou, who was following right behind him, bumped into the prodigy._

"_Ow! Hyuuga, don't stop without warni..." Taiyou trailed off when he figured out what caught his attention and his jaw dropped. "What... what the heck...?" Lee bounded in after them, but he also stopped as his already large eyes became rounder._

"_How do we look?" asked Tenten grimly as he stood next to Tsuki. But that wasn't all._

_They were wearing dresses._

----------------------------------

Everybody could just hear the crickets chirp from outside as the two cross-dressers (well, technically, at least one isn't cross dressing, but still) looked at their friends, anticipating an evaluation. Even though they desperately wanted to chuck the dresses into a fire or something, they were infinitely amused by the looks that were slapped across Lee, Taiyou and Neji's faces.

Tenten was wearing an indigo strapless ball gown under a mahogany sweater trimmed with fake black fur around the neck and sleeves. Her arms were adorned with matching indigo gloves that reached to her elbows, though most of them were covered by the sweater. She was holding a brown wig that she probably would have put on if she had the time. Under her long dress, she wore a pair of black dress shoes. There was an acidly sweet smile on her face, indicating that she was probably going to murder the next person who made her mad.

Tsuki was wearing a silvery dress, with sleeves, that eventually faded into black near the bottom with gray lining around the sleeves. Over the dress he wore a red sweater as well, but it was longer on one side than the other on each sleeve, making them look like a 'V'. On the tip of each 'V' was a crescent, pale yellow shape. The bottom of the sweater had the same effect. There was a metallic blue drop pendant hanging around his neck. He wore a pair of navy blue high heels. Tsuki, unlike Tenten, didn't even try to hide his contempt for the dress and glared at the wall. Oh, and his hair was down as well.

Taiyou's jaw had dropped slightly and he stared at the two as if they were growing wings or something. He then proceeded to close and open his mouth a few times, but no words came out so he just shut his mouth tightly. Neji just stared, with a mixture of amusement and shock, though being the stoical person he is, he hid it effectively. Lee was paralyzed and his jaw had dropped straight to the floor, his large eyes getting even larger.

"...you guys look like girls," stated Taiyou as he came out of his shocked state and smirked, most notably towards Tsuki. That earned him a glare and Tsuki was about to go over to him, but found that high heels were hard to move in. Muttering something about how he did not understand how other girls were able to wear them, he just continued to glare at his old friend.

"Miyamura! You look most youthful!" shouted Lee, looking like he was about to cry. From what, nobody knew, but that's Lee for you. Tenten's mouth twitched and she resisted the urge to produce a kunai and pin the boy to the wall.

"Hn," grunted Neji. Obviously, he looked the most indifferent on this, but he looked slightly... disturbed... to see his roommate and teammate in a dress. _Very _disturbed, seeing how his face twitched when he eyed the silvery garment.

Tsuki and Tenten exchanged glances. Oh, Tsunade was going to be dead...

-_Flashback-_

_When Tsunade's grin grew, the three students instinctively stepped back. "Well, the thing is, we'll need to see if these dresses are appropriate for you three and that you all actually look feminine enough in them," she said with obvious amusement._

"_What do you mean, Tsunade-sama?" asked Haku in the most respectful tone he could get out._

"_I mean... that you have to wear the dresses tonight and ask your friends their opinions on it," answered Tsunade, her grin turning into a smirk. Tsuki choked on his own spit while Tenten and Haku stared at the Sannin as if she had gone mad. This was NOT part of what they signed up for when they came to Konoha Boy's Boarding School._

"_WHAT?!" shouted Tenten and Tsuki in unison. Haku did as well, but in a softer tone. "Why do we have to wear it tonight?!"_

"_Because it'll help us get feedback and see if we need to make adjustments before Christmas," said Tsunade, rolling her eyes. Tenten made some incoherent sounds that clearly showed protest; Tsuki beat her to the talking._

"_But what about Miyamura? His hair is too short, and he'd still look like a guy," reasoned Tsuki, though from the look on his face, he didn't completely mean that. Somehow, Tenten got the feeling that she looked more feminine even with short hair, but that's to be expected; she was the only girl among the group, right?_

"_Oh yeah, that reminds me," said Tsunade, nodding her head as she grabbed three plastic opaque bags from her desk. One of them was considerably larger than the others. "These are your accessories for the dresses; you know, clip-on earrings, shoes, and stuff. I recommend wearing these when you three dress up tonight."_

_She received three glares in return._

_-End Flashback- (Sorry if I portray Tsunade negatively here! It's just a sad excuse for humor...-.-;;)_

"Well, do we look convincing enough?" asked Tsuki, as he looked back at the three still normal-looking males. All of them nodded, though with drastically different expressions. Lee was grinning widely like it was normal for two "guys" (quotes inserted due to Tenten's predicament) to wear dresses, especially ones that are supposed to be worn to parties. Taiyou looked like, at this point, he was either going to burst out laughing or he was going to cower in fear. Neji looked indifferent, though still slightly traumatized.

"Okay," said Tenten sweetly, smiling. Everybody couldn't help but see that she looked a lot like a female. "Now that that's settled, GET OUT! WE NEED TO CHANGE!!"

Lee and Taiyou cringed, but Neji was out of there less than a second later. Tenten physically dragged Lee and Taiyou out the door due to their lack of response, and immediately stepped inside again when they saw a few passing students give her weird looks. After Tenten shut the door tightly, Tsuki went into the restroom again and they changed back to more comfortable (...normal...) clothes.

After bidding goodbye to Taiyou and Tsuki (Lee had already ran off), Neji and Tenten sat in the room quietly for a few moments. Neji, being the unpredictable person he was, spoke first.

"Hayaite..." he began, grabbing, Tenten's attention, "promise me you'll never wear a dress again unless it's absolutely needed." Tenten blinked, confused. "No offense, but you look _way_ too much like a girl. It's scary."

Again, Tenten blinked, but then realization dawned to her. So the reason Neji looked so traumatized was because she had an unnerving resemblance to a girl! Ah, that explains it. Then, she suddenly smirked and got an idea in her head; she was going to tease Neji a bit... She widened her eyes until they looked large and innocent enough. This was going to be fun.

"But... what's wrong with that?" she asked in her normal voice, seeing that she usually used fake, deeper voices around the people. "What's wrong, Neji-_kun_? Does it bother you so much?" She drew closer to him, her innocent act complete with puppy-dog eyes and small pout. Neji raised an eyebrow but slowly scooted away from her with a small glare.

That's when Tenten lunged at him, tackling Neji to the floor. The prodigy's eyes widened. "What the heck are you do—" He stopped short when he was nearly blinded with a flash of light. When his eyes adjusted again, he saw a small camera in Tenten's hands and a huge grin on her face. His roommate has finally caught him off guard.

"That was priceless!" exclaimed Tenten, looking like she would have very much liked to display the 'Neji-is-shocked!' photo in the school newspaper. "You should've seen your face when I tackled you, Neji!" Neji glowered at her and was about to tell her to give him the camera, but he stopped just as he was about to scold her. His face was frozen, before he clamped his mouth shut.

"...hn," he grunted, and pushed Tenten off of him. Without saying anything else, he walked over to his table and continued doing his homework.

Tenten stared at him curiously for a few seconds before she shrugged. She went into the restroom and closed the door behind her gently. Well, at least she got back at Neji for saying that she looked like a girl even though she actually was one. However, he didn't need to know that. She did feel a little guilty about taking the picture, but she was too entertained to let her conscience take over. Sighing, she was about to use the toilet when she froze. There was a roll of bandages next to the sink, which reminded her of something.

_She forgot to wear her bandages after taking off the dress._

She frantically took off her outer garment; fortunately, she had on a vest underneath it that should have hidden her breasts and only those who were looking closely would suspect she was a girl. Just to make sure, however, she opened the bathroom door and popped her head out.

"Oh, and sorry about tackling you," she said meekly, praying that she wasn't discovered.

Neji merely shrugged. "Don't show the picture and you live," he replied curtly, and continued his writing.

She sighed in relief and closed the door again. Looks like he didn't find out.

-----------------11 PM-----------------

There was a knock on the door in Tsunade's office. The principal, who was far from asleep, looked up from her desk and murmured, "Come in." Only one person would meet her this late at night.

Slowly, the door slid open to reveal a girl with a silver ponytail. Her eyes glimmered at Tsunade before she shut the door and sat in the chair next to the principal. For a while, the two females sat in silence, the only sounds being from the clock and the scratches of the papers as Tsunade shuffled through documents.

"What are you doing here? It's rare for you to appear on any day other than the moon festival," commented the sannin, grinning at the other, Gin. She produced a bottle of sake and poured some for herself, but Gin declined when she offered to give the (older) woman some too.

"Well," began Gin, propping her head on the desk, "I forgot to mention some things that I saw in the vision; you know, the one from a month ago." She looked up with a bored expression on her face. "I just remembered while I was talking with _her_. Mentally, of course, since we can't verbally communicate with one another, but we were still talking. Anyway, we realized... that one of your students is in danger in the near future."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she asked. The other sighed and shook her head. "You don't have a lot of details from that full-moon reading, do you?"

"No," confirmed Gin. "I admit that this year will be more amusing than the last, but that's it. There is an impending danger on the loose. But that was the only bad part of the vision that I could put my finger on. Of course, she didn't think that was the only danger, but still."

Tsunade smirked. "So you told her about the dance thing?" she questioned. Gin nodded, her smile lined with mischief.

"She was pretty mad," Gin commented with amusement evident in the very core of her statement. "I didn't warn her, of course, because I wanted to annoy her a bit."

Tsunade's smirk dropped, replaced by a measured frown. "Speaking of her, something strange is going on. Ever since our last meeting, I started to get the feeling that we aren't the only females here, apart from Shizune. I have a feeling that she's involved somehow, but I'm not sure how," voiced Tsunade. Gin laughed heartily.

"You bet there's another female here," chuckled the woman. "Don't worry though; she won't turn this place upside-down due to her arrival. I was talking to my brother the other day about this and the truth is, we knew she was a female since the second she stepped foot on campus. And no, Tsunade, I won't tell you who it is." Tsunade didn't seem to be fazed when she didn't use honorifics.

"Well, it obviously is someone who's either a first year or a new student," reasoned Tsunade. "How many people know of her identity?"

Gin leaned back on her chair, and scrunched her face in concentration. "Well, let's see... she knows because it's herself, then there's the obvious two, and I think that her roommate would have found out by now. I'm pretty sure some of the more perspective students have noticed too, but many of them aren't loudmouths. No worries; none of the secrets will get out and cause an uproar," assured the silver-haired woman.

"Good," mumbled Tsunade. "The last thing I need is to have a pandemonium in this school because they realized that it's not completely a male population." She fixated her eyes in the strange golden ones that Gin had. "But how do you know of this? Did she tell you?"

"If you're referring to my holder, then yes," replied Gin, nodding her head. "But I wasn't sure until I saw her near that pond. Not many people can see me; I told her and her roommate that two of the requirements would be doujutsu or the ability to see spirits. I didn't mention the last requirement." Tsunade smirked at this. She knew that last requirement; that was what enabled her to see Gin.

"So they don't know that the third requirement is that the viewer has to be female, right?" asked Tsunade. Gin smirked as well and nodded. "You're playing the part of a secret keeper now, aren't you?"

"Yup, and you can count on me!" Gin said playfully, mocking importance as she clenched her fist dramatically. "I will not tell a soul about her predicament!"

"That's encouraging," stated Tsunade, and glanced at the clock. "Hm, eleven thirty already, huh? You visited me on around two a.m. last time."

"I should be going back," said Gin, and walked to the door. With a small smile, she added, "See you next year, Tsunade. Good luck figuring out who the girl is." With that, she glided off, down the hall.

Tsunade leaned back on her chair, sighing, as she poured another cup of sake. "First, that Gin comes to this school with _her_, and now, there's a cross-dressing girl running in the halls of this school. What's next?" she murmured. "Hm, but I think I know who it is... ah, what the heck, I'll just see how she'll deal with school." She smirked. An interesting year it will be, then.

-----------------Midnight-----------------

_-Fire-Tamer- has signed on_

_-Solitary-Crescent- has signed on_

_-Star-Lord- has signed on_

_-Fire-Tamer-_ ...What am I doing here, again? And at this time?

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Don't blame me; it was milord's idea.

-_Star-Lord-_ Hey! You two agreed to this, though, so I'm not to be entirely blamed!

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Fine, but you're to be blamed mostly.

-_Star-Lord-_ Geez, fine, I admit that. But anyway, Tamer, Tenten is in hot water. We saw her in a dress and apparently, she's going to fill in a girl's part for that upcoming dance.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ ...Oh, God. Don't tell me it's a strapless ball gown.

-_Star-Lord-_ Uh, actually, yes, but she's wearing a long-sleeved sweater on top... I think.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ ...

_-Star-Lord-_ Tamer?

_-Star-Lord-_ Tamer? Are you there?

-_Star-Lord-_ TAMER! IT'S BEEN TEN MINUTES!! ANSWER ALREADY!!

-_Star-Lord-_ Tamer, Crescent, I DEMAND THAT ONE OF YOU ANSWER THIS INSTANT!!!

-_Star-Lord-_ _**OI!**_

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Hold your horses, milord. I'm here. As for Tamer... I think he either fainted, he had a seizure, he's in a daze, he left the room, or he became too stupid to comprehend words.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ HEY! -vein-

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Good to see you're not dead. Don't worry, we all know that you're consistently the top of your grade level. But seriously, don't think that you're the only one who was surprised about the dress deal.

-_Star-Lord-_ Oh, he should've seen the look on your face! It was of pure shock and trauma that one time.

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ Zip it, lord of idiots.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Back on topic, what are we going to do now?

-_Solitary-Crescent-_ The only option would be to watch and wait. We'll need to pay closer attention to Tenten, and make sure she doesn't reveal her identity, especially during that dance.

-_Star-Lord-_ Sounds good to me.

-_Fire-Tamer-_ Okay, as long as she is able to conceal her identity.

-_Star-Lord-_ Now that that's settled, why don't we get some sleep? We'll be tired if this keeps up.

_-Fire-Tamer-_ THIS WAS YOUR IDEA!!

_-Solitary-Crescent_- WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO CHAT DURING MIDNIGHT?!

-_Star-Lord- has signed off_

-_Solitary-Crescent- _GET BACK HERE, YOU DOLT!

-_Solitary-Crescent has signed off_

_-Fire-Tamer-_ ...Crescent must be really mad to use exclamation points... _and_ caps...

-_Fire-Tamer- has signed off_

-----------------12:30-----------------

"...we need to keep an eye on Miyamura," stated Tsuki, leaning back on the headboard of the top bunk as the moon was at its zenith. Taiyou raised an eyebrow. "He's getting more and more edgy lately, and with that dance coming up, he's going to explode sometime soon. From the size of that dent in the wall I saw, his anger is turning into raw power."

"Yeah. We need to be there if anything happens to him," agreed Taiyou. "Otherwise, he may go into depression or something." There was a short silence between the two old friends. "You weren't as mad about the whole dress business as you let on, were you? I could tell that your glares weren't as potent. Don't tell me that after all these years of rejecting your aunt's pleas to wear a dress for her, you're actually listening to that little voice in your head."

Tsuki scowled. "Why the heck would I want to wear a dress? You know that she just wants to get a laugh; she loves teasing me. 'Look, the asexual child of my brother is wearing a dress!'" he said mockingly. "No, it's because it was going to be warm enough to wear through the dance. I feel sorry for Miyamura; he has to wear a strapless gown underneath that sweater." Suddenly, he looked up at the ceiling. "Looks like we have a visitor."

Taiyou, too, looked up, and smirked. "Why hello there, my dear cousin," he said, his eyes slowly following something from the ceiling until he was looking at something invisible at eye-level. "What brings you to this side of the door?"

"Quit teasing him," sighed Tsuki, propping his head on his arms. "But I have to say that this visit is unexpected. Have you some information?" The two sat in supposed silence for a few minutes, staring at the spot the entire time. At one point, the two winced, but still stared.

"Ah, thank you," sighed Taiyou. Then, he quirked an eyebrow. "You're leaving so soon?"

"Give it a rest; he can't stay long," grumbled Tsuki along with a quick goodbye. Then, he sighed. "Geez, this is going to get complicated now, huh? I'm glad we can see spirits." Taiyou nodded in agreement.

-----------------12:48-----------------

A figure sat on his bed, a hand held out slightly as something circled around it. Evidently, he understood this little thing as it made movements.

"And what next?" he asked quietly, looking intently on the black thing. There was more circling before it went off.

He sighed and laid down onto his bed. "Didn't see that coming."

-----------------12:53-----------------

In another part of the school, another person was scribbling down into a journal, though with slightly lousy handwriting. After he finished, he lifted up the journal and flipped through its pages. He leisurely stopped at a few specific entries. He blinked. Something was up with the entries; they were connected somehow. He marked the pages that seemed to link together, and then wrote down the items. After he finished, he stared at the list he produced.

They were all accounts of different times of different items all linked to one concrete thing. And there was only one realistic conclusion out of all of the ones he could come up with.

He shook his head. Great, another problem for him to face. These people just wouldn't keep their secrets safely to themselves, could they? They better be lucky that he's not one to tell secrets... this situation is getting to be too much for him. This is just one huge bother to him.

-----------------1:09----------------- (CHANGE POV)

Strange. That was the first thought that came to my mind after that incident.

It's well past the usual time that I fall asleep, but I cannot help it. I have discovered too much tonight, and for once, thoughts are whirling around my head, and I'm making an effort to think straight. To put some logic into the situation.

Hours ago, I had discovered a secret that I know that I shouldn't have discovered (but, then again, that's what secrets are), but I had no choice. I cannot say that I am glad that I discovered it either. Sometimes, people say that ignorance is bliss, and I am sure that this is one of those few times where ignorance _is_ bliss. However, I am pretty sure that this secret would have been found out by me sooner or later anyway. Finally, I am able to apply logic to the situation, even though the secret defies logic itself.

Why is my roommate really a female?

That is the question that had plagued me for a while now, preventing me from sleeping. The moon's light seems to be a bit too bright, and I'm getting restless.

Well, now that I think about it, pieces are starting to come together because of that fact. Now I know why Hayaite… or should I say, Miyamura (I'm not sure whether or not her real name is Hayaite) had that blood on her pants; it was her time of month. That also explains her recent mood swings and how a dent had appeared on the bathroom wall after today, or should I say, yesterday. She had always been on the more feminine side, and what Inuzuka said on her first day here should have tipped me off. But Kurayami also said that on _his_ first day here, too…

Evidence had pointed to that more people may know about her secret. I'm sure that the woman… her name was Gin, I think, knows about this. She looked at Miyamura with an 'I-know-your-secret' look that my roommate didn't see. Lee… he may know, but I highly doubt it; even though he correctly called her a 'flower' on her first day, he looked genuinely apologetic when he realized his 'mistake'. As for Kurayami and Hikari, it's possible that they know too, but again, I doubt it. I think it'll be a matter of time before Gai-sensei finds out too; he's the doctor, after all.

I let a small sigh out of my mouth; things were really going to complicate from this point on, and I'm not sure if I'm going to like it.

I might as well not tell anybody until I figure out what to do.

---------------------------------- (OUT OF FIRST PERSON)

While all of this happened in the span of one night, Tenten was left peacefully ignorant of all these going-ons. She did not know that Tsunade was catching onto her case. She did not know that her twin had posted two of his friends to watch over her. She did not know that Taiyou and Tsuki talked to spirits and were worried about her well-being. She did not know that two other souls were getting themselves mixed into this mess by their own methods.

And, most of all, she had no idea that her best friend, in this school, knew that she was a girl.

The moon and starlight seeped through the window, onto her sleeping form. Her body was glowing in the light and yet she slept on, like a peaceful child in the presence of its mother and father. A peaceful child knows not that its life is a lot less simpler than it seems and that life doesn't offer smooth works.

This is all the beginning of the calm before a storm, yet the peace will last just a little bit longer. When the child opens its eyes, it will forever be changed, from its viewpoints in life to its values. It will eventually learn that it cannot run to mommy and daddy for everything that happens. It eventually controls its own life and movements.

While all of this was going on at night, as memories were reflected upon, Tenten still slept peacefully in her bed. Wrapped in ignorance and put in the dark by her comrades, she will one day find that she is not the only one who knows her secret, and most definitely not the only one with a secret.

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I got a few reviews that asked about Tsunade, so here it is. She just found out that somebody in the school isn't a guy (Tenten), and there's a mentioned female involved as well. Who can it be?... I can tell you that it's somebody you've already met in this fic.

Eh, anyway, I'd appreciate reviews even if it's criticism (_constructive_ criticism). Reviews help me get ideas and I may change the course of the story accordingly.


	7. Dance Lessons

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Hana Kimi, Naruto or Mulan. Mulan is her own person, Naruto is owned by Kishimoto-sensei, and Hana Kimi is owned by Nakajo-sensei. ...okay, I don't own anything.

I should really be updating my other story, but I'm at a loss for how to begin the chapter. -sweatdrop- Anyway, many thanks for the reviews! I apologize for the late update; there was some kind of problem in the email, and it took a while for Zaywex to email the chapter back after editing it. But still, enjoy!

Chapter 7: Dance Lessons

"I'm seriously going to kill whoever first came up with the idea of this dance."

"Miyamura, calm down. It's uncharacteristic for you to be so negative; don't tell me that Tsuki's personality has rubbed off on you already."

"I'm pretty sure that Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama were the ones who thought of this, since they're the principals since the start of the schools. And shut it, _Hikari_."

"See what I mean?"

"..."

"Good luck, you two!"

The group of five was walking towards the general direction of the dance instruction, as it had been two weeks since the dress incident. Neji, quiet as usual, looked at his friends emotionlessly. Tsuki was glaring at Taiyou who returned the glare. Lee was actually excited for this event, unlike the other members of their little group, while Tenten was being downright scary, emitting a dark aura. In fact, Taiyou and Tsuki glanced at her from time to time, as if afraid that she'd blow her top while Lee remained blissfully oblivious. If he was aware of her killer aura, then he was masking it pretty well by his cheerful demeanor.

As for Neji himself, he was rather neutral about this whole thing. Ever since Miyamura (as he referred to her now) had hugged him, he had kept more of a distance between them, but he noticed small things from time to time that proved that she was, indeed, a girl. He nearly cursed himself when he realized that he should've caught on when he saw that patch of blood on her pants; that was so obvious it was pathetic that he didn't notice. And he's supposed to be the genius.

In regard to the dance, there was a chance that she'd get her secret revealed and be expelled. Seeing that she's his, dare he say it, best friend, that would've been a slight letdown, especially the aftermath. Lee would be bawling his eyes out, Tsuki would be giving her a sympathetic pat on the back and Taiyou's mind wouldn't advance from the fact that she was a girl. How he became 'friends' with this group, he did not know, but he seemed to open up to them more than usual, although that's not saying much.

As he thought of the dance, he was reminded about the fact that a partner was mandatory and he inwardly groaned. Many of the girls who would ask him, he knew, were just fangirls; many of the students at this school had fangirls, and he's heard that Miyamura has accumulated some as well. His classmate Uchiha Sasuke had the most, but he ignored them pointedly. He considered Miyamura, since she was going to be dressed up as a girl anyway and they're friends, but set that idea down. It'd be too awkward.

"I guess this is where we part ways," stated Taiyou, looking at the piece of paper that each of them were given. "Tsuki and Miyamura are supposed to turn right here and the rest of us are supposed to turn left to our respective dance instruction areas." He smirked and turned to the two. "Well, have fun pretending to be female; you'll both need it." Both glared at him, but neither said anything as he started on his way.

"Yes! We wish you good luck!" said Lee optimistically, following Taiyou while Neji just gave a curt nod.

The two other students stared at the retreating backs of their friends, but turned and walked the other way after a while. Tenten was the one who broke the silence about three minutes later.

"Hey, is it true that two second-year girls have switched schools between the time of the announcement of the dance to now?" she asked, turning to her friend. "Because that'd mean that we need another guy to look like a girl..."

Tsuki nodded. "Tsunade-sama found someone to fill in. I don't know who, but I've heard that he wasn't happy about it."

Tenten snorted. "Who would actually be glad to be in our position?" she asked distastefully. Tsuki gave a weak smile; he knew that she was speaking for herself as well.

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When the two students arrived, they found that Haku and a boy with light silver-blue hair were already there. Haku nodded politely to them when they entered while the other didn't notice; he was reading a psychology book that gave Tenten a headache when she looked at the cover. It seemed to be complicated; it was at least a thousand pages long. She noticed that Tsuki appeared to recognize the kid, but that was all.

They sat next to Haku and talked about various items, though most of the time their discussion revolved around the dance. Tenten was quick to vent her anger out, which Haku seemed to understand. Eventually, the subject jumped to partners.

"I'm already going to Zabuza-san," said Haku when asked.

Both nodded knowingly before snapping their heads to him. "_What_?!"

"He's a senior, and I've heard that their dance was separate from ours!" exclaimed Tenten, eyes wide. "I mean, I'm happy for you two and all, but is there something Tsunade-sama isn't telling us?"

Haku smiled again. Tenten had noticed since her first day in the teams that he was extremely kind and had some kind of deadly aura in battle. "Actually, the third and second years have their dances together. The seniors were asked last year if they wanted to go to the dance again, and those who agreed were marked to ensure that there wasn't an unexpected shortage in girls. Zabuza-san signed up as well."

"...I see," said Tenten. "So I guess that we are going to go with the third years as well." She turned to Tsuki, who was listening on the most part. "And you?"

The boy blinked, as if asking her what the question was, but then remembered. "Oh. Well, I'm not sure who I'm going with. The people I'd even consider to go with would be the people in the FSMA teams. Frankly, Lee, Kiba and Naruto are all too loud, Shikamaru would be too 'troublesome' to be with, Chouji would constantly be at the snack table. I'd feel uncomfortable around Neji and Shino since they'd be quiet and I couldn't even start a decent conversation with them, and Taiyou is annoying. Of course, the idea of dance already scares me, but if I have to dance, I don't care who it's with," answered Tsuki with a shrug. Tenten stared at him. "What?"

"I think you're analyzing this _way_ too much," she stated. He shrugged again.

"I seriously don't care who I'm with as long as they don't love the dance floor and aren't annoying," he stated simply. "Even though it'd be awkward if it was a guy, I couldn't care less if it's either gender. I'm asexual, after all." Again, Tenten stared at him. "Didn't Kiba tell you? He tells almost everybody that, and he's right."

"It's in his blood," cut in Haku. "He's to be asexual until he's twenty. Taiyou is the same, though Tsuki shows it a lot more."

"Yeah, yeah," said Tsuki offhandedly. "How about you, Miyamura?"

Tenten started. Who _was_ she going to go to the dance with? She had to go with somebody, or else she wouldn't be stuck in this particular predicament in the first place and neither would Haku, Tsuki and that other kid who was still reading. A certain pale-eyed face flashed through her mind, but she dismissed the idea of going to the dance with her _roommate_. That would be too awkward and besides, he looked like he was having a trauma when he saw her in the dress.

What was worse was that she didn't know what would have been better: her pretending to be a boy and dancing with a girl or her pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl dancing with a boy. It would be slightly embarrassing, dancing with the same gender, but it would also feel awkward if she danced with someone of the opposite gender who thinks _she_ is the same gender as him.

Was she even making sense?

"I honestly don't know," she admitted. "I don't have anybody in mind."

"Oh," said Haku in a slightly disappointed tone. He looked over his shoulder to the reading boy. "Um, Ishida-san? Would you like to join us?"

Their schoolmate looked up at them and revealed pensive, dark blue eyes and an expression that was more mature than one should have had at their age. He surveyed the group carefully. He blinked once when they rested on Tsuki, and then shrugged. "I guess," he grumbled in a slightly disinterested tone. "It wouldn't hurt." He looked back up at the group. "For those of you who don't know," he added, mostly to Tenten, "you can just call me Ishida."

"I'm Miyamura Hayaite. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ishida," she stated politely, shaking his hand. There was a small silence between the four students before Tenten spoke up again. "So, uh, Ishida, who are you going to go to that dance with?"

The seemingly younger teen looked thoughtful for a moment, though he didn't wipe the calm look from his face. "Perhaps one of my friends," he finally answered. "I don't want to go with a complete stranger, but I don't really care anyway. I'm just irritated that I have to dress as the opposite gender." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I could care less about dances and things like that."

"Is _everybody_ in your group of friends seemingly emotionless?" asked Tsuki, raising an eyebrow. "Wait, on second thought, Fujiwara is too annoying for his own good and Suzumura is too laid-back and comical. But anyway, don't go on a revenge plan," he cautioned.

Tenten blinked and turned to Tsuki, then to Ishida. "You two know each other?" she asked, surprised.

Ishida shrugged. "Our parents have done some business meetings with one another before," he replied curtly. Tenten sweat dropped; he didn't talk much anyway. "But back on topic, I really hate the idea of the dance, especially since we have to cross-dress."

"As long as you don't use your amazing genjutsu skills on Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama in revenge, I'll be at ease," commented Tsuki, rolling his eyes with a hint of sarcasm.

"...genjutsu?" asked Tenten, looking at the boy again. "You're part of our school's FSMA club? But I've never seen you before..."

"Ishida-san is only part of the club; he has no interest in joining the teams," answered Haku gently. "His specialty is genjutsu; I have heard that his genjutsu skills may even rival those of most of the instructors. He trains under Kando-sensei with Tachiki-san and Ikeda-san. Of the three students, he is the only one who is not a third-year and the only one who doesn't specialize in earth-based attacks in some way, shape or form." Silently, Ishida nodded in agreement to all of Haku's statements, confirming them.

"How do you know all of this?" asked Tenten. "Don't tell me that there are information papers on _all_ of the FSMA members..." She trailed off after realizing that she could also be part of that stack of papers that Tsuki had handed her on her second day in the school. As if to confirm her thoughts, Tsuki nodded. He explained briefly how he had information on all of the people in the FSMA club, including the instructors and how Tenten was the most recent edition. He also told her how he usually gets the information from Shikamaru and adds some other things from his own observations.

"Nara?" asked Tenten in surprise. "He's the genius of the grade level? Wow, I never knew that..."

"Yes, and Ishida-san has already skipped two grades to get here," added Haku, gesturing towards the smaller teen. Well, he probably _did_ only reach up to Tenten's nose. But that's beside the point; Tenten's mouth was agape. That quiet little bookworm (and probably to-be psychologist) had skipped _two grades_?

"Do I have to add that he's the fourth smartest in our grade as well, after Nara, Hyuuga and Uchiha?" added Tsuki offhandedly.

Tenten was surrounded by the smartest people in second year, and she never knew. This school ceased to amaze her.

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After about ten minutes of chatter that was sprung purely from boredom, the door to the small instructional room finally opened again. A slightly disgruntled young man who couldn't have been any more than a year older than the group stepped in. He had strange, medium-length long brown hair, dark blue eyes and was scowling around the room. His eyebrows furrowed deeper when he saw the group, and he seemed to stare at Ishida a few moments before moving on, looking as if he was in an even worse mood.

Behind him, two girls emerged with a second male, who had makeup all over his face. One of the two females had long, pink hair and emerald eyes that sparkled and looked completely innocent. The girl next to her had short, navy hair and eyes that looked suspiciously like Neji's, and seemed to be extremely shy. The one with the makeup was scowling and looked as if he wanted to be anywhere _but_ there right now.

"Ikeda," greeted Ishida to the brown-haired male, who just glared at him. "What are you doing here? I thought our instructors were supposed to be _professionals_ or something, from what the principal said."

The other's glare deepened. "Apparently, Tsunade-_sama_ thought it would be easier if you guys were taught by students who were more advanced in dancing," he answered, with unadulterated sarcasm in the 'sama' part. "More like it'd be cheaper."

As the two exchanged a cold conversation, Tenten turned to Haku, as Tsuki looked like he was actually listening to what they were arguing about. "So he's Ishida's teammate, huh?" she stated, looking at the boy.

"Correct," replied Haku. "Ikeda-san uses specific earth-based attacks well and frequently wields pole-like weapons. He was born in France but moved here a month before he started grade school. Apparently," he added, "his parents had enrolled him in a dance program that he passed with ease, though grudgingly."

"Ah, I see," said Tenten, and turned her attention to the other scowling boy, the one with makeup on. "And who's that?"

"Sabaku no Kankuro," answered Haku. Tenten blinked.

"Wait, Kankuro _of_ the sand? Doesn't he have a last name?" she asked, curious. Haku shook his head. "I see... that's interesting." They watched Ikeda and Ishida's 'conversation' for a few more seconds before the girl with pink hair came up from behind Ikeda and whacked him across the head, sending him stumbling a few feet to the left.

"WILL YOU QUIT IT?!" she yelled at the guy, who was well over half a foot taller than her. "We were sent here for a _reason_, and you're slowing us down, for Pete's sake!" There was a stunned silence in the room as Ikeda righted himself and didn't say anything further, save for a few dark mumbles. "Thank you," the girl said, exasperated.

"U-um, we'll be your 'teachers' for the dancing," murmured the pupiless girl nervously, eyeing the four students. "W-we're splitting up i-into two groups. Uh, I think Kurayami-san and Ishida-san will be coming with myself and Ikeda-san into the next room." Tsuki nodded and got up without a word, following the girl. Ikeda and Ishida were both exchanging glares as they followed.

"Well, that's done," sighed the pink-haired girl in relief, silently referring to getting rid of Ikeda. She turned to the two 'boys' cheerfully. "I'm Haruno Sakura, and I'm to be one of your dance instructors for the next few weeks. And this guy here," Sakura added, jabbing a thumb towards Kankuro, "is Sabaku no Kankuro. I'm pretty sure that you two know him, seeing that you two go to the same school and everything, but he's a third-year and he'll mostly be in charge of your makeup."

"I can't believe that Tsunade-sama actually persuaded me into this. I swore to never get involved in this stupid dance again and what happens? I get stuck being the makeup artist for four cross-dressing guys," he grumbled darkly. "Temari had a good time making fun of me..."

"...don't worry, he'll snap out of it," said Sakura, sweat dropping. She then turned to her two 'students'. "And you two are Miyamura Hayaite and Nozawa Haku, correct?" she asked politely, completely contrasting to her earlier personality.

"Uh, yeah, I'm Hayaite," said Tenten, sweat dropping. "And this is Nozawa..."

"Okay," said Sakura, smiling, "why don't we get started now, then?"

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After an hour of commanding barks and stubbed toes, the four dance students were more than ready to leave the place. Tenten and Haku had heard yells from the other side of the walls in the next room, and when they saw the condition that their friends were in, they considered themselves lucky. Ishida and Ikeda were glaring at each other viciously and Tsuki was trying, in vain, to calm down a quivering and traumatized Hinata. There were multiple scratches on all of their shoes, indicating that Tsuki and Ishida were worse at dancing than Tenten and Haku.

Of course, that didn't mean that Tenten had a fun time dancing. She had to dance with Haku as the girl at first, and she tripped multiple times, sometimes even on her own feet. When it was Haku's turn, he was doing a lot better than her as a girl, but he _did_ accidentally step on her foot twice. Despite the fact that Kankuro was supposed to be their 'teacher', his dancing skills just didn't cut it, and he ended up with a throbbing lump on his head after he accidentally kicked Sakura in the knee.

"Okay, we'll see you guys on Thursday," said the pink-haired girl in an exhausted tone, leaning on the wall. "We have a lot of work to do here, and I _expect_ you two to improve your skills by the time Christmas comes along." She grabbed a half-conscious Kankuro by the collar. "We'll be reporting to Jiraiya-sama and Tsunade-sama, so goodbye for now." She went out the door, followed by an irritated Ikeda and a quivering Hinata.

After the four 'teachers' left, Tsuki groaned and flopped down onto the floor. "I _hate_ ballroom dancing and other forms of dance," he grumbled, rubbing his sore feet. "I don't see the point in this event, anyway, unless this is one of Tsunade-sama's bets with Jiraiya-sama or something."

"From the multiple yells of pain and your current appearances, I'm assuming that both of you aren't experienced in this," observed Tenten, and the two tenth cousins nodded simultaneously. She sighed. "We couldn't dance that well either. I feel sorry for Haruno-san and Kankuro as well as your teachers. They have to go through all of this..."

"I can't wait until this cursed event is over," mumbled Ishida. "Come on. Let's go back."

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"How was your dance session?" were the first words out of Tenten's mouth once Neji entered the room with his usual emotionless face. She had arrived ten minutes before him and had already taken a shower to get rid of the sweat and moved into more comfortable clothes. The blasted dress and accessories were in one of her still-unpacked suitcases, out of view. She hadn't gotten around to trying on the wig, nor did she plan to put it on until Christmas.

Neji looked up at her, and she noticed that there was a hint of annoyance in his hardened eyes. "Hn."

"That doesn't tell me anything," snapped Tenten.

"Hn."

He was wearing down Tenten's patience by the second. "Look, Neji," she snarled, "if I'm supposed to find out the answer by looking at your face, then you're giving me a really hard time because even a rock shows more emotion than you. Will you speak up for once, for Pete's sake?"

"Fine," sighed Neji as he sat on his bed. "It was horrid," he stated flatly.

"_Elaborate_, please," said Tenten in fake politeness.

"...hn."

"Nnneeeeejiiiiiiii," she growled, glaring at the prodigy, "if you don't provide more detail, I will post that picture I took two weeks ago on the boarding school's newsletter and you will become the laughingstock of our class."

This time, the Byakugan user glared at his roommate. "And you _do_ know the consequences of posting it, right? Remember, we're on the same team sports-wise."

"Yeah, but you'll still be the laughingstock," she replied in an acidly sweet voice.

"...why are we arguing over this?" he asked, sighing. "Fine, I'll tell you, Miyamura. To put it simply, the people in the room were morons and couldn't dance if their lives depended on it. I seriously do not know how they will be able to get a date for that dance."

"See? That wasn't so hard..." stated Tenten, grinning. However, her good-natured mood was quickly shattered. "Wait, I told you to stop calling me Miyamura!"

"And your point is?" questioned Neji. Tenten popped a vein.

"I've told you before, you can call me Hayaite!"

"...hn." After he grunted, Tenten considered pounding some sense into him, but decided against it. Instead, she stomped over to her desk and started doing her homework.

Neji simply shrugged at this and went into the bathroom to take a shower. Honestly, he didn't mind calling his roommate by her first name rather than her surname, but he didn't feel like it would feel right if he called her by an alias. He was also aware that her last name could also be something other than 'Miyamura', but he doubted it. The only reason for her to change her name would be that it indicated her gender.

Of course, _she_ knew none of this. Neji sighed and resigned to the thought that hiding a secret can be easier than hiding the fact that you _know _a secret.

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"What are you two doing here?"

Those were the six words that made Tenten trip before she was able to launch a flurry of shuriken at Neji and caused the prodigy to throw a kunai in the voice's direction.

Having finished dinner about half an hour ago, the two roommates had decided that rather than just do dance lessons every Tuesday and Thursday, they would practice their skills after dinner on those days as well. The most tranquil area in the school at that time was by the small pond that the (old) woman, Gin, had been at two months ago. Of course, they had to take extra precautions not to fall into the freezing water, but that was easy. Beside, even if they fell in, it would just be an extra shower, in a sense.

Neither of them held back as they attacked each other, putting their wits about and not letting the other get a single advantage. The moves even looked rehearsed, as if they were made just for show, seeing that neither of them got hurt too much. Neji, as always, had the upper hand in this spar, but he never went easy on her. Why? Because he knew that she would beat him one day, and going easy would be an insult to the weapons master (or mistress, to be exact).

However, they were snapped out of concentration by an unpleasantly familiar voice that yelped as the owner of it dodged Neji's kunai by a millimeter. "H-hey! Watch it! It's unyouthful to throw things at people without a reason!"

"Lee, we were in the middle of training," sighed Tenten as she straightened up and brushed the dirt off of her clothes. "What are you doing here, anyway? Last I saw, you were doing extra laps with Gai-sensei."

"We finished ten minutes ago, and so I decided to find you guys!" he replied happily. "I passed Tsuki and Taiyou on the way, who told me that you two were here, though they didn't tell me that you were training... Anyway, how was your dance session?" The last question was directed towards Tenten, who, of course, had a lesson apart from the other boys.

"Our teachers were students," she answered, straight to the point. "Only one of them was into the dancing. Another was too busy glaring at one of the dance students, the third was muttering how he hated dancing, and the last couldn't stop being nervous. Which reminds me... Neji, are you related to a shy girl with short, navy hair?" she asked her roommate.

Neji's eye twitched. "Yes, Hinata-sama is my cousin," he answered, stiffly. Tenten blinked. '_...-sama? From his expression, I better not ask... well, what's to see of his expression, anyway.'_

"Ah, no wonder. You two have the same eyes," she observed, nodding. "Well, overall, it wasn't that bad, I guess. I was lucky enough to get away with a few scratches on my feet; my practice partner was Haku most of the time and he's not a horrible dancer."

"Do you two have any ideas for dance partners, then?" asked Lee eagerly. Suddenly, his round eyes turned into comical, pink hearts as he grinned from ear to ear. "I'm going to ask Sakura-san..."

"...no." Both of his friends responded to his question at the same time, with the same word. However, Neji said it blankly while Tenten had an air of agitation around her. Despite that, she raised an eyebrow at Neji, silently ordering him to continue as Lee daydreamed about Sakura.

"Hn."

"Come on, Neji! Tell me, why don't you have a partner?"

"Because most of the girls who want to be my partner are fangirls," he answered with a hint of disgust in his voice. "I would appreciate it if I could go to the 'ball' and do the minimum dancing, and I'd prefer if my partner was not clingy. Unfortunately, most of the people who would want to be my partner _are_ clingy." As an added effect, he threw a kunai at the nearest tree, causing the projectile to slam into it with only half of the metal poking out. Obviously, he was frustrated and did not want to go to this dance at all.

"Eh, we'll see this Sunday," pointed out Tenten, reminding him of the scheduled meetings with the other school. That didn't cheer him up much.

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And here's the third part to the dance chapters! I think that this will go on for... say, two more chapters. Or more. Then, there'll be a new plot that I'm more excited about. Currently, the artist (Temisu) is bashing her head on her knee because of my idea and the fact that she has to draw it, and how complicated I might make things. That's just a heads up.

By the way, Ishida, Ikeda and their group aren't created by me. Who can guess where Ishida and Ikeda come from? No, not geographically, but in terms of real works (e.g. name of novel, video game, TV show or movie...). And, who can guess _who_ Ishida and Ikeda are? Neither of them are from Bleach (just thought I'd say that since there is an 'Ishida' in there). Whoever guesses right can either request something for this fanfiction (as long as it's T-rated or less, and I may change it a bit to fit it in the storyline) or request a scene to be drawn by Temisu. If you're guessing, type your requests in your review as well. I'll give a warning before the contest is over... and you can change your requests any time...

...why am I doing a contest? Anyway, reviews (and constructive criticism) are highly appreciated. And many thanks to Zaywex for editing.


	8. Meetings

Surviving a Boy's Boarding School

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

...is it really that hard to figure out who Ikeda and Ishida are? Looks like I have to give a few more hints... I only received one guess so far, and that was considered a wild guess.

Okay, I may have went overboard with the hints in this chapter. Or maybe not...

I apologize for the late update. Temisu (aka Texmaris here) created a fanfiction account, and since she's helping me with these stories, we decided to focus a bit more on hers for a while. It's not going very well, unfortunately.

Another display of female puberty appears later in the chapter (and by that, yes, I mean menstruation).

Chapter 8: Meetings

The rest of the week passed without much excitement. During the second dance session, the number of bruises and minor injuries decreased slightly, though Sakura still proclaimed that they had a long way to go before they were ready for the 'ball'. Ikeda and Ishida seemed to place their rival-like feelings for each aside and cooperated for the sake of getting the sessions done early, but they still didn't pass a chance to growl at each other. How they became teammates, Tenten could not figure out, but she secretly hoped that their third teammate was rational enough to keep them apart. Kankuro was still unhappy about teaching dancing to people who were a year younger than him, but tried to cooperate. Tenten chatted with Hinata, and she seemed okay. Sakura could potentially become her friend as well.

As for Haku, he improved a lot and now, it was only Tenten who was making mistakes during their dance practices in the room. From what she heard, Tsuki was improving as well, but he didn't like talking about the practices. In fact, he seemed to become more reserved in the past few days, though he was still more talkative than Neji (which isn't saying much). Of course, Taiyou noticed and had tried to 'cheer' him up, which resulted in two stomps and a throbbing foot. At least that part of Tsuki hasn't changed (according to Taiyou).

Currently, Tenten's group was once again going to another dance-related event, though this time, it was more of a 'get to know each other better' thing. It was held in the auditorium in the Boy's Boarding School this time, though, and was like a mini-social. Contrary to what Tsunade had told them, they weren't going every Sunday, but only every other Sunday. That was a relief to Tenten, as she didn't want to waste time at these 'socials' when she could be sparring with Neji (which had become a common occurrence despite the fact that he refused to call her 'Hayaite' to reasons not known to Tenten) or studying.

There were about ten more minutes until the start, and even though most of their school's second-years (and some third-years) had already arrived, two figures weren't there. That was evident in the fact that Tenten's group consisted of three people today instead of five.

"Where are they?" asked Tenten irritably as she scanned the sea of males. "They're going to be late at this rate. Tsunade-sama threatened to make us run a hundred laps around the campus perimeters if we were late!" Lee opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "Yes, we know that you can run a hundred laps easily, Lee, but not everybody is as... 'youthful' as you."

Lee grinned. "Thank you, Hayaite! And I am sure that they are also very youthful; youthful enough to not be late!" he responded optimistically. As if on cue, a certain clump of navy and another of brown appeared behind him just as Lee said 'late'.

"Sorry guys, but we're going away for the whole day," said Tsuki, looking like he ran all the way to the auditorium from the dormitories. "We got a call from my parents. There's some family business that needs to be tended to and it'll take up the whole day. We've already discussed this with Tsunade-sama. Also, before you even ask, our families are business partners," added Tsuki, the last part directed to Tenten.

"Right. So, we'll see you guys tomorrow!" called Taiyou, already making his way to the door. Tsuki rolled his eyes and with one last wave of farewell, ran after his best friend.

"...okay, speak of the devil," observed Tenten, sweat dropping. "I know this is a bit random, but I have no idea how they became friends."

"True," agreed Neji. "Taiyou can be too tactless and open for his own good while Tsuki seems to be more, well, tactful and quiet but moody at times." He shrugged. "But that's not of our concern."

-----------------Meanwhile, Outside the Auditorium-----------------

"AH-CHOO!" Tsuki and Taiyou sneezed, then looked at each other, slowing down their pace.

The latter sweat dropped. "Either somebody's talking about us behind our backs, or that was a strange coincidence since though neither of us have a cold..."

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Soon after that, the students from the other school filed in with their principal. After a few introductions and announcements by Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama, the students were forced to socialize with each other and reminded that they needed a partner by Christmas.

"Troublesome," grumbled a voice behind them. Tenten whipped around to find most of the FSMA teams present, and the boy with the pineapple-like head was obviously the one who uttered the word before. "This is just a waste of time."

"Agreed," sighed Sasuke, hands in his pockets. Immediately, though, his head shot up, and, with an irritated (and possibly startled) expression on his face, he backed away quietly to a secluded and slightly hidden area. Apparently, Neji felt something as well, as he followed Sasuke shortly afterwards, motioning for Tenten to follow. Shikamaru went along as well.

In the secluded area of the auditorium, (though the loud sound of student chatters still reached them), Tenten looked at her roommate with a confused expression on her face. Neji sighed. "You'll see in a few moments," he mumbled. Sasuke still looked slightly agitated for an unknown reason and Shikamaru just stared out towards the rest of the auditorium, as if waiting for something.

Suddenly, taking Tenten off guard, a large amount of squeals and screams were heard as a group of particularly... 'stereotypical girls' (feh, according to _some_ movies, novels, etc...) made their way towards the area where Neji had just dragged Tenten from. From what she could see, most of the other boys looked even more agitated as Sasuke had been (now, he had on a smug smirk) and tried to escape from the view of the fangirls.

Of course, a good portion of the other school's female population was looking rather embarrassed at the fangirls, while some others walked away from them, not wanting to associate themselves with the hyperactive ones. That probably relieved the FSMA team members, but it still didn't help with the fact that about twenty girls were simultaneously trying to ask them out.

"...interesting..." said Tenten, sweat dropping. "Does this really happen every time you guys see your 'sister school'?"

"Unfortunately," answered Sasuke, leaning on the corner of the wall. "All of the more obsessive girls seem to be attracted to FSMA team members, and this happens almost every time they see us." Tenten nodded in understanding as she looked back at the squealing fangirls. Haku was already with Zabuza, so they didn't bother him much. As for the others, though, they had to struggled to get away from the grips of the fangirls. Some of the girls were searching the room frantically, and Tenten guessed that they were after Neji, Sasuke, Shikamaru and... she shuddered. She'd already heard before that she had fangirls, but this was ridiculous.

There were a few shouts of "WHERE'S SASUKE-KUN!" and "WHERE'S NEJI-KUN!" from the crowd, making the two said boys cringe. Tenten concluded that they must be the most popular out of the members, and, apparently, they didn't like it. She observed further that both of them were considered geniuses (Neji was the second smartest in the grade after Shikamaru while Sasuke was in third) and had cold personalities.

'_Is that what really attracts those girls?'_

"Hiding from the usual?" asked a female voice near the group, making Tenten jump. Neji and Sasuke flinched while Shikamaru just gazed lazily at the new arrival. He, of course, recognized the voice at once, unlike the other three; in fact, Tenten had never heard it before.

"Forced into this too, Temari?" he asked idly to the four-ponytailed girl in front of them. Her smirk and cool eyes told all of them that she was NOT a fangirl, though the fact that she was carrying a very big fan on her back should've given it away. Tenten highly suspected that it had purposes for other than being a useful tool to have around during the hot summers.

"Yeah, unfortunately," sighed the girl. "Jiraiya-sama wanted _all_ of the third-year girls to attend so that there wouldn't be that much of a shortage in girls during the dance. The female population at our school dominates the males, but not by a lot." She turned to Tenten and observed her for a bit. The cross-dresser resisted the urge to squirm under Temari's gaze; it was almost as calculating as Shikamaru's (though she showed it better than the boy when she observed people). "Hm... Miyamura Hayaite, is it?"

Tenten looked straight at her, surprised. "Yeah. How do you know?" she questioned, but mentally beat herself for that. Of course they'd know; after all, she was part of the FSMA teams...

"Ah," said Temari, nodding her head. "So _you're_ the 'cute-little-newbie' that I've heard of," she added with a slight smirk. Tenten was startled once again. "You didn't know that you were referred as that?" asked the upperclassman, surprised.

"No. I haven't had much contact with females since I came into this school, apart from Tsunade-sama and Shizune-san... and some other teachers," answered Tenten, knowing that it wasn't a lie. After all, she couldn't be in contact with herself, since she didn't have a clone out there. However, she paused and remembered the Tuesday and Thursday sessions. "...and Hyuuga and Haruno, but that's solely for the dance lessons."

"Oh yeah," said Temari, nodding. "Kankuro told me all about it. He kept on complaining about being the makeup artist, but nobody else could've been able to do the makeup for the guys... well, nobody volunteered, so I guess your principal just picked him for the heck of it."

"I remember. I think Kankuro mentioned you once," said Tenten, nodding.

"Uh-huh. So, have you guys found your dates for the dance?" asked Temari with a smirk on her face that suggested she knew the answer to that.

"No," replied Tenten simply. Sasuke and Neji both silently shook their heads in response, and all eyes turned to Shikamaru, who was pretending to sleep (and failing).

The lazy genius cracked one eye open, as if he was a bit annoyed. "Fine, you troublesome woman. I'd rather go to the dance with you than those who claim to 'love' us," he mumbled just loud enough for the other four to hear. There was a heavy silence between them, and even the other noises of the auditorium seemed to be muffled. It took a while for Shikamaru's words to sink in.

"Nara Shikamaru, did you just ask me to the dance?" asked Temari in a skeptical tone, eyeing the boy cautiously as if he could catch on fire any moment.

"Troublesome..." responded the boy. Neji, Tenten and Sasuke moved away from them a bit after they glanced at Temari's reddening face (though it was more from anger than embarrassment) and left the two to squabble.

"Uh, so," started Tenten, trying to make a conversation, "who do you guys plan on asking to the dance?"

"Hn," was all she got from Neji. Typical.

"The first person who asks me who isn't too clingy and actually has an ounce of potential strength-wise," answered Sasuke, who used more words than Neji, to her surprise. However, his response was slightly unexpected. Once he caught both of their questioning glances, he sighed. "Tsunade-sama would force all of us to get a partner; if she didn't then there wouldn't have been any point in having you—" he pointed at Tenten "—and the others go through the torture of cross-dressing. So, if I was to not pick somebody before the allotted time, then Tsunade-sama would probably pair me up with a fangirl."

"...I understand your logic, but Uchiha, that's the most I have ever heard you speak," commented Tenten in mock-awe. Sasuke gave her a glare that was unnerving in that it was so similar to Neji's. "But anyway, I get your point. Might as well get a good partner while you can, huh?"

"Yeah," agreed Sasuke. He then looked at Tenten with some degree of amusement glimmering in his eyes (which is not a good thing). "Now, it's time for you to answer the question."

Tenten opened her mouth, but she made no audible noise, so she shut it, jaws clenched. Sasuke just _had_ to remind her of her predicament, didn't he? How she could not ask another guy to the dance because it'd be too awkward even though she was actually a girl (but few knew that) was more or less embarrassing, and she was in a very tight fix. After she thought of multiple ways to get out of Sasuke's inquiry, she finally settled to a glare. She held in the urge to punch him when he gave her a smug smirk.

"I'm going to wait and get paired up with whoever is left over," she answered flatly, though not sure how true that would be. "As Nara would put it, these dances are really troublesome."

For the rest of the period, nothing much happened that would be interesting enough to mention. The fangirls weren't able to find Shikamaru, Neji, Tenten and Sasuke, no matter how hard they looked. In fact, the only person from the other school who even noticed that they were there was Temari, but she _was_ almost as good at deduction as Shikamaru.

As for the rest of them, Lee had managed to escape within ten minutes and was able to keep it that way for the rest of the hour. Some of the less luckier ones had looked at him with envy; he was, after all, one of the quickest of the students. Only Haku and Sasuke's speeds awere either close or surpassed his, and that was probably what got him so many fans, though he had very few 'rabid' ones. That was another factor to his quick escape.

Chouji was only a bit more popular than Lee, but the usually-pleasant boy was still annoyed by how the girls kept trying to talking to him while he ate his chips. Sure, some of them gave him food as well, but that's beside the point. Shino's popularity was on the same level as Chouji's, but his hyper admirers certainly surpassed Chouji's in number. However, Shino being Shino, he completely ignored them and instead observed a spider that was crawling around the wall. From what Tenten saw, she would even say that he was jealous of it since it didn't have to consistently hide from fans.

Haku... well, despite the facts that he looked more feminine than most of them and he was already going with Zabuza, the girls adored him. It seemed that even though he's pretty nice to them most of time, even he has his limits. He nearly snapped that day, and if it weren't for the fact that Zabuza was also there for patrol purposes and managed to restrain the boy, the room would have been bloodied.

Kiba and Naruto were the two who seemed to have the most fangirls out of them (apart from Neji and Sasuke, of course) and neither of them minded... much. Kiba enjoyed the attention, but he was starting to get irritated when every other girl came up and cuddled Akamaru. Naruto was happily oblivious to the female attention, and simply chatted with Kiba, mostly about ramen. Tenten noticed that a certain female Hyuuga was watching Naruto from afar, and looked as if she was internally debating on whether or not she should ask him to the dance. Sakura was seen talking to Tsunade for a few minutes before she blended back into the crowd. How she managed to do that with her pink hair, Tenten never found out. She had no idea who she would go to the dance with, anyway; she probably liked Sasuke or Neji.

She was able to locate Ishida in the crowd as well. He was talking to another student who had so many muscles it was almost unbelievable, whom she assumed was Tachiki, his other teammate. Contrary to popular (and extremely unfair) belief, he looked quite intelligent, and was trying to solve a Rubik's cube. He finished in less than a minute. Apart from Tachiki, there were four more students that seemed to be part of their group. Two of them actually looked like they were having fun, but that was untrue for the rest of them. Ikeda and Tachiki (whom she assumed to have been forced into the dance, since they were third years and looked irritated or bored) weren't even bothering to look up from whatever they were doing.

---

The current time was after dinner, and once again, Tenten and Neji were sparring by the pond. This time, Tenten was using a new weapon that she had acquired— a large, sickle-like weapon. Ikeda had been by the side of the pond that had reeds earlier, until the two sparring partners appeared. He had lent the weapon he was practicing with to her after she found out he had two of them (one was stashed away), since he noticed that starry-eyed look she had on when she spotted his. He left shortly afterwards, after Tenten promised to return it on Tuesday. The handle was pure black with a long, silver blade that had a slightly cross-shaped head.

This time, Neji was going a bit easier on her, as she was simply getting used to the new weapon, and this wasn't a real spar. However, he didn't go too easy on her, and she didn't complain; she'd be insulted if he held back... though she swore that he could've killed her with that last attack. She jumped and swung her weapon at him, which Neji evaded easily. However, he was stabbed in the stomach by the other end of it, to both of their surprise, and slid back a few feet.

"You're improving," he commented, straightening up to signal that they would stop sparring for the day. Tenten grinned and relaxed,; observing the weapon again. It was beautifully crafted, but it seemed like the black areas were painted over, as the pigment was odd.

"Great! So, should we head back?" she asked cheerfully. Neji shrugged.

"Hn."

Tenten took that as a yes and dragged him back, the (very large) weapon slung over her shoulders. A few of the students looked at her in curiosity or wariness as soon as they saw the black weapon, but Tenten was too busy thinking up moves for the weapon to notice. Neji had gotten away from her hold and was now walking beside her, careful not to get his head cut off accidentally by the massive weapon.

When they reached the crossroads that joined the dorms, the comfortable silence was interrupted by a loud yell.

"FUJIWARA!"

Neji and Tenten exchanged glances before turning their heads towards the general direction from where the shout came from. '_Is it just me, or did that voice sound unusually like...'_ thought Tenten, sweat dropping.

Sure enough, a teen with bright, spiky hair came running their way with a massive grin on his face. Tenten recognized him as a member of Ishida's group, which strengthened her suspicion on who was behind the yelling. The teen easily dodged the two bystanders and kept running, laughing at whoever was chasing him.

They didn't have to wait long to see a very ill-tempered Ikeda round the corner, another sickle-like weapon in hand. Tenten didn't get to see what color it was, but she was able to get one fact: Ikeda's brown hair had lightened in color considerably.

"THAT IS THE LAST TIME YOU SLIP HAIR DYE INTO MY SHAMPOO, YOU NUMBSKULL! LAST TIME THIS HAPPENED, IT TOOK ME A _MONTH_ TO GET THE COLOR CHANGED BACK!" Ikeda roared, also dodging past Tenten and Neji. Again, Fujiwara simply laughed and made a shadow clone of himself. The two Fujiwaras went their separate ways and succeeded in irritating Ikeda even more.

As it turned out, a certain silver haired teen was walking by, his head in another pschology book. He glanced up at Ikeda, and then the two pranksters, and sighed. "The one to my right is Fujiwara; good luck catching him." With that, Ikeda rushed past the shorter teen and went after the slightly panicking Fujiwara. Ishida sighed again and walked right past Neji and Tenten, though not without saying, "I advise you two to get out of the road, or else somebody will run over you."

Before long, Neji and Tenten were by themselves again, and were slightly baffled at the events that just took place. Slowly, Neji turned his head to Tenten, his eyes almost demanding an explanation. Tenten rolled her eyes. "Hey, I'm just as confused as you. Apparently, those three are part of a big group and their interactions with one another aren't exactly ideal."

"...Strange," mumbled Neji. Tenten shrugged and they went on their way back to the dormitory.

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The next week passed in the same fashion. Tenten had quietly returned the weapon to Ikeda, who was fuming the whole week and refused to take off his hood during the dance sessions. In terms of dancing, Tenten had improved drastically and gained some approving comments from Sakura, who stated that she should probably teach the first-years when they had to have the dance next year. Of course, Tenten declined; she doubted that she wanted to go through with this again.

Currently it was 7 pm and Tenten was lying on top of her bed, groaning. She had just finished her homework that was assigned yesterday (today iwas Sunday) and Neji wasn't there to explain things to her when she was confused. He was in some kind of meeting with the other team captains; apparently, there was a match in a week or so (3 vs 3) and they were to receive some kind of information.

The door opened, and Tenten peered over her bunk, eager for someone to fill the emptiness of the room. Neji walked in and hung up his coat, his face not betraying even a hint of emotion (but then again, Tenten was already used to that).

"Neji!" she called, making the stoic teen look up at her with a raised eyebrow. "What did you guys talk about in the meeting?" she asked in a tone that made it obvious that she was curious.

Neji simply shrugged. "You'll find out after practice tomorrow," he muttered, heading towards the restroom. Tenten rolled her eyes; somehow, he had been especially distant lately, and she just couldn't figure out what happened to him.

Abruptly, though, a ringtone sounded from within the restroom, and then Neji's voice was heard. Tenten sweat dropped. '_Why in the world would he have his cell phone with him in the bathroom...?'_ she wondered, though slightly interested in this new subject. As she pondered on the separate reasons, the door was swiftly opened and Neji walked out, his face resembling a stone. Without saying anything, he walked over to the coat rack and threw on his coat again His parting words were, "Family business."

Tenten rolled her eyes once again as the door slammed shut. Leave it to Neji to be as vague as possible, especially if he's in a rush (which wasn't that often, truthfully). Feeling thirsty, she thought it would be the best to go to the vending machine and get something to drink. She wasn't feeling particularly hungry, anyway, and her stomach area was hurting a bit. With that, she jumped off the bed (not bothering to use the ladder) and strolled out the door.

As she purchased the drink, she was accompanied by four more people: Shikamaru, Shino, Tsuki and Taiyou. It was really strange for the former two to be with the latter two, but they didn't have clashing personalities... well, except Tsuki and Taiyou, but that's a special case. She raised an eyebrow. "Why aren't you guys at dinner?" she asked, surprised.

"Troublesome," mumbled Shikamaru. When he didn't say anything else, she concluded that he thought that eating dinner tonight would be troublesome or something. Shino simply shrugged. Tenten didn't expect anything else from him, since he was sometimes more quiet than Neji.

"I don't really like what they're having for dinner tonight," said Taiyou, laughing a bit nervously. Tsuki rolled his eyes, as if he was silently saying 'That's Taiyou for you'.

"I'm not hungry right nowI was about to go on a walk around the outer areas of the campus before I ran into those two-" he jabbed a finger towards Shikamaru and Shino- "and decided that I might as well grab a drink along the way. Taiyou was thirsty too, so here we are." Tenten raised an eyebrow at his sudden talkative state; for the past few days (or was it weeks?), he had been communicating less and less with the group.

"Ah," said Tenten, nodding. She turned to get her drink out when she heard a gasp behind her. Turning around, she saw that Taiyou had his mouth slightly open in surprise.

"Oi, Miyamura, where did you get the new wound?" he asked. Tenten's face paled.

'_Oh, no..._' Frantically, she glanced around her pants, and, just like that time a month ago, there was a small red stain on them. Shikamaru seemed uninterested, Shino raised an eyebrow and Tsuki looked at her as if asking why the heck she had a wound when they didn't have practice today.

"Practicing with myself has a price, doesn't it...?" she asked nervously, hoping she sounded convincing. "I didn't even notice I injured myself." Hurriedly, she walked away to her room, cursing for forgetting about her 'time of month'.

"Hey! Miyamura! What about your..." began Taiyou, but was immediately whacked across the head by Tsuki. "...drink...?"

"Idiot."

"Troublesome."

"..."

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"NO!" yelled Tenten in desperation as she flipped through all of her suitcases. She couldn't find a sanitary product anywhere and since she was in an _all-boy's school_ and was the _only girl there_ (well, except for Shizune, Tsunade, Sasaka, etc...), she couldn't ask anybody if they know where to get one. She swiftly went into the restroom but found that they were out of toilet paper as well. "Damn it, why does my time of month always come on an unfortunate day?" she grumbled. Changing her pants and underwear, she bit her lip.

Looks like she'd have to go to the public restroom and use some toilet paper from there. Then, maybe she could go outside and buy some toilet paper. It was only 7:30 right now, and it wouldn't hurt to go outside... or she could just take a roll from the restroom.

Jogging, she reached the restroom in ten seconds (after passing an irritated Sasuke and Naruto, who was talking avidly about ramen again, as well as a few more students who gave her strange looks) and it only took another second to get into a stall with a door. Slamming the door shut (thankfully, the restroom was nearly empty), she locked it and used the toilet. Just as she was about to get the toilet paper, however, an extraordinary thing happened. How this happened, Tenten wasn't able to know for a long time, but it just... happened.

Three (unused and closed) pads were slid from the other side of the stall door and right to her feet. Tenten just stared incredulously at what was in front of her before she picked them up with shaking hands. The footsteps of the giver were already dying away, and she knew that it would be useless to pursue them now. After inserting one of them onto her panty and stuffing the rest of them (as well as the wrapping of the used one) into her pocket, she flushed the toilet and walked out. A dull, throbbing ache was in her stomach again, but she ignored it.

_'I have got to keep my secret better,'_ she thought, miffed that somebody actually figured it out. She was already passed the 'shocked' stage, anyway, and was determined to find who that person was and force them to not tell anybody about her secret. However, she had a strange feeling that her secret wouldn't be getting out anytime soon.

In a slightly confused state, she walked out of the restroom and almost right into Taiyou. "Oh, there you are!" he exclaimed, jumping back a bit. He looked glad to see her, and pulled out her forgotten beverage. "You didn't take this with you before you ran off, so I thought I might as well return it to you."

"Ah, thanks," she stated a bit more flatly than she would have liked. Taiyou raised an eyebrow, but shrugged it off. Tenten then thought of the possibility that Taiyou could've been the one who gave her the pad (nobody else was around), but shook that off. He looked completely clueless, after all.

-----------------At that time...-----------------

"Hm. I knew it," said a smirking student, giving a smug look at the person he was talking too. "I knew you figured it out."

The other rolled his eyes and sighed. "Is it really that hard to guess?" he asked, leaning against the wall. "I have no idea why I keep on discovering secrets that I don't want to participate in. They just jump out at me, somehow."

"I know what you mean. What's that saying again?" asked the former, pondering a little. "Oh yeah,. 'Expect the unexpected.' I didn't expect to find a girl here..."

"_Another _girl here," corrected the other. "Remember, there's Tsunade-sama, Shizune-san, Sasaka-sensei, Y-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," sighed the first, rolling his eyes. "You really have a knack of getting caught up in things that have nothing to do with you. I think you've already figured out every single one of my secrets."

"Through months of observation," said the other. "But her secret was easier to figure out..."

"So, what will happen next? ...and where did you get the pads?"

"..."

"Oh yeah. I remember now. Nevermind"

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... -sigh- Okay, okay, you guys can blame me for the bad chapter and the excessive appearances of Ishida and co. But the equation -me plus writer's block equals good chapter- is completely untrue. Of course, the guessing game is still here... If you want, you can ignore the whole part about Fujiwara and Ikeda's hair. It was put there mostly for comic relief, and that was during my writer's block period.

Reviews would be great. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Many thanks to my beta-reader, Zaywex.


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